Welcome to this quick guide where I'm going
to show you how to create a Windows 11 bootable USB drive. The method I show in this video can be used
to create a Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive which can be used to install Windows 11 on
both supported and unsupported hardware. The first step is to open up your web browser
of choice and then go to this webpage. Now I'll have this website linked in my written
guide, which will be the first link in this video's description, so you can also go ahead and get it from there. But once you're on this page, this is where
we can download Rufus, and that's what we'll be using to create a
bootable USB drive, and we'll also be using it to remove the Windows
11 hardware requirements. Once you're on this page, just scroll all
the way down until you find the download links, and here you have a few different options
to choose from. For most of us, the first option, which is
the standard 64-bit, will be perfect, but if you want to use the portable version
or you have other hardware or software that you need to use it on, you can go ahead and use any of the other
links. I'm going to be downloading the standard Rufus. I'll go ahead and click on that, and once it's finished, I'll just click on
open file to open it, and then here we have Rufus open on our computer. Now before we move on, you'll need to download
the latest Windows 11 ISO file, and I've made a separate guide on how you
can get this Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft, and I'll link that in the description of this
video and in the cards now, so you can go ahead and follow that guide
if you don't know how to get this ISO file, and then come back and create a bootable USB
flash drive with Windows 11 on it. Starting from the top in Rufus, currently
it doesn't detect any device, as I don't have a USB flash drive plugged
in, and the flash drive that you use needs to
be at least 8 gigs in size, so go ahead and plug in your USB flash drive
if you haven't done so already. Once you've plugged in your USB flash drive,
you should see it listed here under the device tab, and next you'll need to select an ISO image,
which will be the Windows 11 ISO file, so just go ahead and click on select, and
then you'll need to navigate to where you saved the ISO file on your computer. For me, I saved it on the desktop, and here
I have the Windows 1122H2 ISO file, so I'll go ahead and double click on that
to open it. Next, you can choose between a standard Windows
installation and Windows To Go. For most of us, the standard Windows installation
is what we're looking for, so just leave it on that option, and then
you can choose between GPT and MBR. Now, if you don't know what the difference
is between MBR and GPT, and which one you should choose, MBR is generally for older systems that still
use a normal BIOS, or CSM BIOS, also called Legacy BIOS, and I would say if
your computer hardware is from before 2012, then you might need to use MBR, but in most cases today, GPT will be the option that you'll want to select here, as most of the computers these days have a UEFI BIOS. So, I would suggest that you leave this on GPT and create the USB flash
drive and see if you can boot from it, and if you can't boot from it, then come and follow this process
again, but change this to MBR, and then see if you can boot from it in your computer. Here, you also have some advanced drive properties
that we're not going to be using, so I'll just go ahead
and hide that again, and then you have some different format options. The first one being you can give this USB
flash drive a name, so I'll give this USB flash drive a name of Windows 11, so I
know what's on it, and for the file system and cluster size and these advanced format options, you
can just leave this all on default, and once you're ready to create this USB flash drive, you
can just click on start. Now, you'll be prompted to customize this Windows 11 bootable USB flash
drive. So, here you have a few different options, and let me run through each of them real quick
so you can understand what they all mean. Now the first one will remove the requirements
for Windows 11, and I definitely suggest that you leave this ticked, even if your computer does
support Windows 11, just leave this option checked so you don't run into any issues. Then, you also have the option to remove the
requirement for an online Microsoft account. I also recommend that you keep that checked. Next, you can skip the user account creation process if you check
this box, and then type a username. I'm going to leave that unchecked for this installation, and
then you have the option to set the regional options to the same value as the user of the computer that
you're currently using. So, that means the regional options, like the time and date and the language
of this Windows 11 bootable USB drive, will be the same as this computer's that you're using
to create the bootable USB flash drive. Next, you have the option to disable data collection,
and this will skip the privacy questions when you're setting up Windows 11 for the first
time. I definitely want to have that checked, and then I'll also disable the BitLocker automatic
device encryption so my drive doesn't get automatically encrypted by BitLocker. Once you're happy with the settings you've
chosen here, you can just go ahead and click on OK, and
then you'll be prompted that all of the data that you have on this USB drive will be destroyed. So, if you have any important files that you
can't afford to lose, you need to make a backup of them
before you continue with this process. But if you're sure that all of the data on this USB flash drive
can be erased, then you can go ahead and click on OK. Rufus will now start creating the bootable
Windows 11 USB flash drive, and you can have a look at the status screen down here to see how this
process is going along. Now, generally, you can expect to wait around 10 minutes for this
process to complete. Once Rufus has finished creating the Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive, you'll
see the progress bar in the status screen will turn completely green, and the USB flash drive's
name will be changed to whatever you selected here in the volume label. If I go ahead and close out of Rufus, and
then open this PC, and open the Windows 11 USB flash drive, I can now see all of the
bootable Windows 11 files on it, and you can now use this Windows 11 USB flash drive to boot up
and do a repair or clean install of Windows 11 on your computer, whether it has supported hardware
or unsupported hardware. I do hope this guide helped you out. Please like the video and see you in the next
one.
