• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Windows Valley

Windows 11 guides and tutorials, tips and tricks, fixes, reviews, and editorials

  • Home
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Use
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Create Bootable Windows USB Flash Drive (UEFI)

July 2, 2021 By Ramesh Kumar

In this blogpost, we cover beginner to intermediate ways to create a bootable Windows USB flash drive using a Windows .iso file for installing or reinstalling Windows 11 and Windows 10 on UEFI-based computers. After walking through many methods, we have complied a list of top 4 techniques as follows:

  • Use Rufus to create Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive
  • Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive by using Windows Media Creation Tool
  • Create bootable USB flash drive to use to deploy Windows 11 by using DiskPart (Command Prompt)
  • Create Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive by using Windows Storage Management cmdlets (PowerShell)

Info

If you’re not sure about whether your existing computer is compatible to Windows 11 or not, refer to Windows 11 System Requirements.

To get started, make sure you have

  • A computer running Windows 7 or later for Rufus and Media Creation Tool, and Windows 10 Version 1703 or later for DiskPart, and Windows Storage Management cmdlets with an internet connection
  • An official Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft’s Software Download site
  • A blank USB flash drive. It needs to be at least 8 GB.

Tip

If you’re looking for the easiest way, use Rufus utility.

Use Rufus to create Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive

  1. Connect a USB stick to your computer.
  2. Download Rufus utility and Run it. The current logged in user account must be an administrator to run this tool.
  3. Now click on SELECT button to select the downloaded ISO file, and make sure the following options are set as follows:
    • Image option: Standard Windows installation
    • Partition scheme: GPT
    • Target system: UEFI (non CSM)
    • File system: NTFS
    • Cluster size: 4096 bytes (Default), and keep rest of the options as they are.
  4. Now click on START button to kick of the process, the utlity will do the magic from partitioning and formatting the USB stick to extracting ISO file and copying its content.
    Rufus Utility creates bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks
  5. One it’s done, eject the USB stick and plug into the target system to boot and perform a clean installation or reinstall Windows.

Use Windows Media Creation Tool

  1. Plug a USB flash drive into your computer’s USB port.
  2. Download Microsoft’s Windows Media Creation Tool and Run it. The current logged in user account must be an administrator to run this tool.
  3. Read the license terms and click Accept if you agree with.
  4. On the What do you want to do? window, select Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC and then click Next.
  5. On the Select language, architecture, and edition page, uncheck Use the recommended options for this PC to enable a plethora of choices to select language, edition, and architecture of Windows 11. Choose them accordingly and click Next.
    Windows Media Creation Tool creates installation media (USB flash drive or DVD)
  6. On the next page, choose USB flash drive to create bootable installation USB media and click Next. You can also choose ISO file and save a Windows 11 Disc Image that can be used to create bootable pen drive or DVD later.
  7. Now select your attached USB drive from the drives list and click Next to start downloading Windows 11 Setup files. Once the downloading is finished, the tool will start formatting the removable drive automatically and create a bootable Windows 11 USB flash drive.

Create a bootable USB flash drive to use to deploy Windows 11 by using DiskPart (Command Prompt)

  1. Insert a USB flash drive into the computer.
  2. Open Command Prompt window as Administrator. (In the search box, type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter) and then type diskpart and press Enter to launch to DISKPART promopt.
  3. First, determine the USB flash drive index number, so run list disk command on the DISKPART prompt. The command displays a list of disks on the computer. Note the index number of the targeted flash drive.
  4. At the DISKPART prompt, now execute select disk x command (where x is the disk index number and in our case, it is 1) to receive the focus.
  5. After selecting the disk, run clean command to remove all partitions on the disk and then execute convert gpt command to convert the disk from MBR to GPT.
  6. To create the first primary partition on the USB flash drive, type create partition primary size=1024 or create part pri size=1024, and then press Enter. As soon as you create the partition, the focus automatically shifts to the new partition but it does not receive a drive letter. So, run assign command to assign a next available drive letter to the partition. Now type format fs=fat32 quick and press Enter to perform quick formatting the partition in FAT32 file format.
    DiskPart commands to make bootable Windows USB memory sticks
  7. Now create another primary partition using maximum unallocated storage space. To do so, type create partition primary or create part pri and then press Enter. Don’t forget to assign a drive letter to the partition as it doesn’t get one automatically. Then run format fs=ntfs and press Enter to format the recently created partition in NTFS file format.
  8. Once it’s finished, mount and browse the downloaded ISO file using File Explorer, and copy efi, boot, and sources (with boot.wim only) directories along with bootmgr and bootmgr.efi files to the FAT partition and copy reset of setup files the second partition i.e. NTFS (For more details, refer to the directory structure diagram) and your bootable Windows 11 USB stick is ready to roll.

Info

The modern (UEFI-based) computers boot to a system partition called EFI System Partition (ESP) that must be formatted using the FAT32 file format and FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 GB. To workaround this situation and “The file ‘install.wim’ is too large for the destination file system.” error message, we create a 1 GB FAT32 partition to store the specified OS boot loader or kernel with some utilities and a NTFS partition for the rest of Setup files.

Create Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive by using Windows Storage Management cmdlets (PowerShell)

  1. Attach a blank USB flash drive to your PC.
  2. Open PowerShell window as Administrator. (In the search box, type powershell or pwsh and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter).
  3. First, determine the USB flash drive number, so run Get-Disk cmdlet that displays a list of physical disk objects on the computer. Note the disk number of the targeted USB flash drive.
  4. Now execute Clear-Disk -Number n -RemoveData -RemoveOEM (where n is the disk number and in our case, it is 1) to remove all data and OEM partitions on the USB flash drive.
  5. After erasing everything on the disk, type Set-Disk -Number n -PartitionStyle GPT to set the type of the partition as GPT.
  6. To create the first primary partition, assign a drive letter and format it in FAT32 file format, use this PowerShell one-liner with two cmdlets New-Partition -DiskNumber n -Size 1024MB -AssignDriveLetter | Format-Volume -FileSystem FAT32
    Windows Storage Management cmdlets for bootable USB stick for Windows
  7. Now, create another primary partition with a drive letter using the maximum available space, and format in NTFS file format. To do so, use the one-liner New-Partition -DiskNumber 1 -UseMaximumSize -AssignDriveLetter | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS
  8. Once it’s done, mount and browse the downloaded ISO file using File Explorer, and copy efi, boot, and sources (with boot.wim only) directories along with bootmgr and bootmgr.efi files to the FAT partition and copy reset of setup files the second partition i.e. NTFS. This is it!

Directory structure diagram of UEFI bootable USB flash drive for Windows

FAT32 Partition/
├── boot
├── efi
├── sources/
│   └── boot.wim
├── bootmgr
└── bootmgr.efi
NTFS Partition/
├── boot/
├── efi/
├── sources/
├── support/
├── autorun.inf
├── bootmgr
├── bootmgr.efi
└── setup.exe

Have you got any questions you’d like us to answer? If so, let us know in the comments.

Windows 11 System Requirements and Supported Surface PCs

June 25, 2021 By Ramesh Kumar

Introducing Windows 11

Are you excited for the new Windows experience after watching this Windows 11 overview video? If yes, you can get a free upgrade to Windows 11 if and only if your current Windows 10 PC meets the Windows 11 system requirements to run .

The basic hardware requirements of Windows 11 are almost same as Windows 10 but there is a catch. Even your existing Windows 10 PC is running in the most current version of Windows 10, it might not be able to upgrade to Windows 11.

How to check if your PC is compatible with Windows 11?

So, there are a couple of way to check if your PC is eligible for Windows 11 upgrade. You can download and run the PC Health Check app and it will let you know that your computer is ready for Windows 11 or not.

Here are the system requirements for installing Windows 11 on a PC.

SpecsRequirements
Processor:A compatible 64-bit processor or System on a Chip (SoC) with 1 GHz or faster with 2 or more cores
RAM:4 GB
Storage:64 GB or larger storage device
System firmware:UEFI, Secure Boot capable
TPM:TPM 2.0
Graphics card:Compatible with DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver
Display:High definition (720p) display that is greater than 9″ diagonally, 8 bits per colour channel
Internet connection and Microsoft accounts: To complete Windows 11 Home setup and some cloud-powered features require Internet connectivity and a Microsoft account

In addition, there are some feature-specific hardware capabilities are required (optionally) such as:

FeatureRequirements
5G support5G capable modem
Auto HDRHDR capable monitor
BitLocker to GoUSB flash drive (available in Windows 11 Pro and above editions)
Client Hyper-VSecond Level Address Translation (SLAT) capabilities in CPU (available in Windows Pro and above editions).
Cortana, and Multiple Voice Assistant (MVA)Microphone and Speaker
DirectStorageNVMe SSD and DirectX12 GPU with Shader Model 6.0 support
DirectX 12 UltimateAvailable with supported games and graphics cards
Snap3-column layouts require a display with 1920 effective pixels or greater in width (In general, FullHD or higher)
Spatial SoundSupporting hardware and software
Intelligent Video Conferencing, and TeamsVideo Camera, Microphone and Speaker
Two-factor AuthenticationUse of PIN, biometric authentication, or a phone with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities
Wi-Fi 6EWLAN IHV hardware and driver and a Wi-Fi 6E capable AP/router
Windows HelloIR Camera or Fingerprint Reader for biometric authentication
Windows ProjectionDisplay adapter with Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0 and Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct.
Xbox (app)Internet connectivity and an Xbox Live account

The processors listed in the tables below are officially supported for Windows 11 (soft floor):

Intel CPUsAMD CPUsQualcomm CPUs
8th Gen (Coffee Lake)Ryzen 2000 (Pinnacle Ridge)Snapdragon 850
9th Gen (Coffee Lake Refresh)Ryzen 3000 (Matisse)Snapdragon 7c
10th Gen (Comet Lake)Ryzen 3000 (Picasso)Snapdragon 8c
10th Gen (Ice Lake)Ryzen 4000 (Renoir)Snapdragon 8cx
11th Gen (Rocket Lake)Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer)Snapdragon 8cx (Gen2)
11th Gen (Tiger Lake)Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne)Microsoft SQ1
Xeon Skylake-SPRyzen 5000 (Lucienne)Microsoft SQ2
Xeon Cascade Lake-SPRyzen Threadripper 2000
Xeon Cooper Lake-SPRyzen Threadripper 3000
Xeon Ice Lake-SPRyzen Threadripper Pro 3000
 EPYC 2nd Gen (Rome)
 EPYC 3rd Gen (Milan)

If you are looking to buy a new Windows 10 PC that has got it all, look for “Free upgrade to Windows 11” on the fact tag.

Windows 11 supported Microsoft Surface devices

Windows 11 is compatible with these Surface computers. You can install Windows 11 on any of these Surface models. This list will be updated as other compatible models become available.

Surface ComputersWindows 11 Support
Surface Book
Surface Book 3 13.5″✅
Surface Book 3 13.5″ with dGPU✅
Surface Book 3 15″✅
Surface Book 2 (Intel 8th-gen CPU)✅
Surface Book 2 (Intel 7th-gen CPU) ❌
Surface Book with Performance Base❌
Surface Book❌
Surface Go
Surface Go 2✅
Surface Go with LTE Advanced❌
Surface Go❌
Surface Laptop
Surface Laptop Go✅
Surface Laptop 4 (Intel CPU)✅
Surface Laptop 4 (AMD CPU)✅
Surface Laptop 3 13″✅
Surface Laptop 3 15″ (AMD CPU)✅
Surface Laptop 3 15″ for Business (Intel CPU)✅
Surface Laptop 2✅
Surface Laptop❌
Surface Pro
Surface Pro 7+✅
Surface Pro X (SQ2)✅
Surface Pro X (SQ1) ✅
Surface Pro 7✅
Surface Pro 6✅
Surface Pro with LTE Advanced model 1807❌
Surface Pro (5th gen)❌
Surface Pro 4❌
Surface Pro 3❌
Surface Pro 2❌
Surface Pro❌
Surface Hub
Surface Hub 2S✅
Surface Hub❌
Surface Studio
Surface Studio 2❌
Surface Studio❌
Surface
Surface 3❌
Surface 2 (RT)❌
Surface (RT)❌

UPDATE 1: Microsoft has described its compatible by design approach from Windows 10 to Windows 11 categorizing the Windows 11 system requirements into two parts: (1) Hard Floor, and (2) Soft Floor.

In order to run Windows 11, devices must meet the following specifications. Devices that do not meet the hard floor cannot be upgraded to Windows 11, and devices that meet the soft floor will receive a notification that upgrade is not advised.

– Microsoft

The hard floor is as follows:

  • CPU: Core >= 2 and Speed >= 1 GHz
  • System Memory: TotalPhysicalRam >= 4 GB
  • Storage: 64 GB
  • Security: TPM Version >= 1.2 and SecureBootCapable = True
  • Smode: Smode is false, or Smode is true and C_ossku in (0x65, 0x64, 0x63, 0x6D, 0x6F, 0x73, 0x74, 0x71)

And here’s the soft floor:

  • Security: TPMVersion >= 2.0
  • CPU Generation

UPDATE 2: Microsoft seems to have changed its mind about the aformentioned floors and has updated the Compatibility for Windows 11 page to provide to correct the guidance around the TPM requirements for Windows 11.

New vs Old – Windows 11 System Requirements

So, if you want to install Windows 11 on your old PC, it must meet the abosolute hardware requirements (i.e. soft floor) of Windows 11 that demands 8th Gen or Ryzen 2000 and newer CPUs with TPM 2.0 support.

Hello world, I’m back!

June 24, 2021 By Ramesh Kumar

To refresh Windows desktop, you need to right-click and click ‘Refresh’ or just press F5, but refreshing a website takes little more efforts. And yes, Windows Valley is getting refreshed.

//Reconnect/

I began as ‘It’s My Windows’ back in 2008, renamed to ‘Windows Valley’ in early 2009 to share my personal thoughts on Windows family of operating systems. And then I just quietly disappeared from Windows Valley.

So, what happened?

In short, I was distracted. Instead of listening to my inner self, I got busy with lots of things. After the last update to Windows Valley, I jumped onto news media bandwagon. I led a decent sized staff and focused on delivering tech news to the general public. There’s a nonstop flood of news every day, and it was an incredible chase to ‘know and cover’ everything.

And then I had other things to do. I got an opportunity to learn and manage servers – mostly web and mail servers – to keep the web alive for my team and partners. It can never be completed as the clientele keeps growing, though I had some steady paychecks.

In the meantime, Microsoft attempted to reshape personal computing from releasing Windows 10 as a Service aka WaaS to expanding the Surface family, and crazy ideas like HoloLens. Although, I was active on different social media platforms at that point, but I never inked anything here – it’s my bad – except a few drafts of Windows 10 reviews.

I know you must be thinking this abrupt story does not excuse the years-long absence, but it needs to be said why this happened.

Why again?

Every day, I have been experiencing a kind of fatigue while working on my computer. It nagged at me to get Windows Valley back up and start Windows Programming again.

Writing codes and discussing about Windows and other Microsoft technologies is my passion, and putting energy into something as awesome as solving problems is something I couldn’t resist myself anymore. I see now what I’ve been missing. Besides Microsoft is also set to unveil the next generation of Windows as ‘Windows 11’ at a June 24th event at 11AM ET / 8AM PT. Yeah! you read it right and it’s happening now. The upcoming OS is a big visual overhaul with cherry-picked features of the cancelled Windows 10X. So, everything is getting refreshed then why not us. It’s time!

In a nutshell, to complete the story, everybody does need a comeback.

What should you expect from the refreshed Windows Valley?

First thing first, Windows Valley has always been a one-man show yet. This approach has both pros and cons. In advantages, I can express my genuine and unique views, but it has a few problems like my messed-up schedule on the contrary. So, we will be expanding soon.

Now, we’ll be doing less news because we rarely blog anything first, however, we would love to do in-depth stories to tell you more about what it means than simply just what it is. And if you’re reading Windows Valley for news, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

So, you can mostly expect Windows 11 guides and tutorials filled with tricks, fixing Windows problems, reviews, editorials, and more.

Being a seeker of adventures, I’ve got a few more things in the pipeline and will give you a heads-up when we’re ready to unleash. In terms of a whole package, we will have it all to change the course.

I could have gone further writing this welcome post but the context is more important. So welcome back, and looking forward to your feedback.

Have a nice day!

© Windows Valley 2021. Some rights reserved. Not affiliated with Microsoft.