Rufus!!! A tool to make bootable flash drives. These days CD-ROM and DVD hardware are not installed in laptops or even desktops very often. You can buy an external DVD or Blue Ray but it’s basically a waste of money unless you enjoy ripping movies. If you have a need to load different Operating Systems or even re-load your Windows 10 system, you should use bootable flash drives.

Rufus is a free tool that has been used by 100 million plus users since its release in 2012. It’s only function is to help you create bootable flash drives. Pete Batard is the developer. He provides this software out of the goodness of his heart and does not ask for a dime. Thanks Pete!

Round up your Flash Drive and the Operating System (OS) ISO you want to boot. Everything from Windows to Free DOS to Linux can be used to create bootable media.  I‘ll review and demonstrate a new function in version 3.5. Downloading and creating boot media for any version of Windows 10.  Say you would like to get the latest version or possibly an older version of Windows 10.  Rufus will download the ISO and create the bootable media for you.

Insert your Flash Drive and start Rufus. When you first start Rufus, the ability to download a windows image is not available. You must first go to settings and set the check for updates function to something other than “disable”

I set mine to “Monthly”

Click “Close” then restart Rufus. This time you can see the dropdown function next to “Select”

Change the dropdown from “Select” to “Download”. Click on “Download”.

This is an interesting few steps. I won’t take screenshots of these. After you make each selection a “Continue” button will display. Just keep selecting the options you want and continue clicking “Continue”. Once you get to download, click “Download” and select a location on an internal drive that has enough space for the ISO.

Once the download completes, click Start. Remember, you must choose the correct boot method (UEFI/GPT-based or BIOS/MBR-based) or it may not boot. If you are not sure, go here and read up on the difference.

Get Rufus 3.5 here.