Rufus is a tiny windows application that allows you to quickly and easily create bootable USB drives from ISO images. The file size of the program is just 1.1MB, moreover, it’s portable.
Instead of optical discs which are prone to wear and tear, it’s best to have an operating systems installer (windows or rescue discs) on Pen drives/thumb drives. Also, these memory sticks are easy to carry and useful if your system doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive.
Rufus is a standalone application, which means it doesn’t need installation and you can work with the program straight away.
Just launch the app by double-clicking the thumb drive icon.
Getting started with the program is simple, the app automatically detects your USB drive, and to create a bootable USB drive, you need to select the ISO image by clicking the ‘CD Drive’ icon, then go ahead to hit the ‘Start button.
The utility supports all types of bootable ISOs. Rufus will format the drive and creates a bootable USB Windows installer or Linux from the bootable ISO image you selected.
The program supports both MBR and GPT partition schemes for UEFI, file system options include: FAT32, NTFS, UDF, and exFAT.
The application lets you change cluster size, volume label, and the program even allows you to check the device for bad blocks, and select the algorithm type.
Despite its small size, Rufus provides everything you need. 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
- Do you want to run a low-level utility
To know more details and to download the application visit the developer page.
Update[15/10/2021]:
The Rufus application received an update, now version 3.16 is available at https://rufus.ie/downloads/.
This is a Final version with fixes and improvements. Rufus 3.16 (final version) now lets you create a Windows 11 ISO without TPM and Secure Boot, you can either download the Windows 11 ISO directly from Rufus, or from the Microsoft website.
