Windows 11 - Burn ISO image to USB flash drive Windows 11
There are two ways of creating ISO of Windows 11 and "burning" it to the bootable USB stick.
1. Using the media creation tool (MCT) to create installation media:
- After downloading, run the media creation tool. You'll need to be an administrator to run this tool.
- If you agree to the license terms, select Accept.
- Using the "What do you want to do?" page, select Create installation media for another PC, then choose Next.
- Select the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit) for Windows 11.
- Select which media you want to use:
- USB flash drive: Attach a blank USB flash drive with at least 8 GB of storage space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted.
- ISO file: Save an ISO file to your PC. This can be used to create a bootable DVD. After the file has been downloaded, you can go to the location where the file is saved, or select Open DVD burner, and follow the instructions to burn the file to a DVD.
2. Using Rufus software:
Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pen drives, memory sticks, etc.
In case you've downloaded the ISO directly (instead of using MCT) from the Windows 11 ISO page, you can burn the ISO to the USB drive using an excellent utility called Rufus: https://rufus.ie/en/
It can be especially useful for cases where:
- you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.)
- you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed
- you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
- you want to run a low-level utility
Instruction on how to burn the ISO to the USB stick, can be found directly on the Rufus website, using interactive image menu.