Rufus - The easiest USB boot creation application

Pete Batard originally launched Rufus in 2011 as a free open source DOS bootable USB flash drive utility, replacing Windows HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (HUDSFT). Several updates have appeared over the years. 2020 saw a more stable, modern release than before. The most notable changes are support updates for ISO images, UEFI boot, and Windows To Go.

New features on Rufus 3.21

The latest version of Rufus, version 3.21, is now available a week after the release of version 3.21 beta. Rufus 3.21 comes with many improvements, including an improved Windows user experience, local account support, and updated drivers.

The latest version of Rufus also introduces various changes related to the Grand Unified Bootloader and several other components. The Rufus team announced the general availability of version 3.21, which was released about a week after the beta release. The latest version of the popular open source tool that allows users to format and create bootable USB comes with many new features and bug fixes.

Improved Windows support

The most notable improvement of Rufus 3.21 is the Windows support features. Along with updated drivers, the latest version also fixes NTFS and exFAT file system errors. It also comes with improved Windows user experience and improved local account support. The changes in the latest release are:

1. Allows providing arbitrary local account usernames in the Windows User Experience dialog box
2. Improved Windows version reporting from ISO/.wim
3. Update UEFI:NTFS NTFS driver to v1.4 and exFAT driver to v1.9
4. Switch to remote download for non-standard GRUB (Fedora 37, openSUSE Live, GeckoLinux)
5. Fix UEFI:NTFS partition not being set to MBR mode for ISO files > 4GB (UwUntu)
6. Fix GRUB support for Arch and derivatives, when using non-FAT compliant labels
7. Fix incorrect detection of GRUB with non-standard prefixes
8. Fixed tab order not working on Windows User Experience dialog box

 What is Rufus?

Rufus is a small utility that formats and creates bootable USB flash drives, such as USB sticks, pendrives, memory cards, etc. Rufus formats USB flash drives so you can boot machines with missing or missing operating systems. damaged onions. It creates installation files from bootable ISOs, especially of operating systems such as Linux, UEFI and Microsoft Windows. You can also use Rufus to flash BIOS or other DOS firmware.

Burning ISO images to CDs through popular tools such as InfraRecorder or CDBurnerXP has been widely used. With the advancement of technology, Pete Batard decided to create a USB installer, when he felt tired of proprietary software.

HUDSFT is limited in certain features, so Pete Batard accepted the challenge of developing a copy of the software that could be made available for free.

Many people have praised the benefits of using Rufus as a bootable USB creation utility. One of the most important aspects is continuous updates, which help ensure that the software remains relevant to modern requirements.

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Rufus may be especially useful for:

1. Need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.)
2. Need to work on a system that does not have an operating system installed
3. Need to flash BIOS or other firmware from DOS
4. Need to run a low-level utility

 Despite its small capacity, Rufus offers everything you need! Plus, Rufus is very fast. It is twice as fast as UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer or Windows 7 USB Download Tool, when creating a Windows 7 USB installation drive from ISO. Creating a Linux bootable USB from ISO is also a bit faster.

Below is a brief list of the different versions that provide support for the following systems and functions:

1. 1.0.4: FreeDOS
2. 1.1.0: Image ISO
3. 1.2.0: Updated support for MS-DOS and FreeDOS
4. 1.3.2: UEFI
5. 1.4.0: Language localization
6. 2.0:
7. 2.18: Compatibility for Windows Vista and XP machines

A non-exhaustive list of ISOs that Rufus is known to work with includes:

Arch Linux, Archbang, BartPE/pebuilder, CentOS, Damn Small Linux, Fedora, FreeDOS, Gentoo, gNewSense, Hiren's Boot CD, LiveXP, Knoppix, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, NT Password Registry Editor, OpenSUSE, Parted Magic, Slackware, Tails, Trinity Rescue Kit, Ubuntu, Ultimate Boot CD, Windows XP (SP2 or later), Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, etc.

System requirements 

This USB boot creator has quite modest system prerequisites. Here's what you need:

1. Computer running Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP (32-bit or 64-bit)
2. USB has a capacity of at least 8GB

Is Rufus safe to use?

When you have serious system problems and need to reinstall Windows 10, you can burn the operating system to USB with a Windows 10 ISO file. Rufus can help you complete this task. You can download the software from the official Rufus website. However, you may be worried about security issues when downloading a new app. So is Rufus safe to use?

The answer is yes. Rufus is a legal application and it does not come with ads, banners or any other software. It is free for both personal and commercial use. As long as you download it from the software's official website, you don't need to worry about attacks coming from viruses or malware through this application.

Features of Rufus

Free Rufus

This USB format tool is completely free for both personal and commercial use. Not only is it free software, but it's also open source, meaning you can distribute, modify, and even integrate Rufus into your own software projects.

Extremely simple interface

When it comes to the graphical interface, Rufus is extremely simple. It has just one window containing all the standard options. It can be expanded if you want to display advanced drive properties and format settings as well.

 There are three separate sections: Drive properties, format options, and status. The 4 buttons in the lower left let you change the user interface language, view product details, configure update settings, and view and save logging information.

Rufus helps run Windows 10 from USB

With the latest updates, Rufus can run Windows 10 directly from USB. You need to get the appropriate license first to avoid any legal action or copyright issues from Microsoft. When you're ready to change your operating system, you can insert the USB into your machine.

When your PC boots, hold or press the correct button combination to change the boot location. You can point out that the machine will use a USB flash drive to boot and take you through the Windows 10 setup process. The operating system will run a little slower from the flash drive, because there are fewer resources to rely on than installing set PC.

Can Rufus create multiboot USB?

The developer has indicated on the website that Rufus is designed to create a USB installer with a single operating system. There was also an announcement that there are no plans to update the software to incorporate multiboot processing. However, with a little tweaking, it's not entirely impossible to do so.

You will need a second, larger flash drive to act as a multiboot USB. You can follow the same steps to create a bootable USB via Rufus, then copy the ISO files to your multiboot drive.

Once completed, you just need to reinsert the Rufus USB, choose another operating system and watch the software format the drive to prepare for the new operating system. You can copy new files to your multiboot drive in a separate folder.

Easily create new USB OS installers

Although the process of creating a bootable USB using Rufus may seem complicated at first, it will become easier with practice. You can use this software to create a multiboot device on another drive, providing faster speeds and more capacity. If you cannot boot your PC or the operating system is corrupted, you should use Rufus to create a portable boot system.

One of Rufus's top competitors is UNetbootin. If you rely on reviews to choose one of these two programs, Rufus is ranked as the number 1 USB boot flash drive creation utility worldwide, while UNetbootin ranks 9th on the list. The main reason for this result is that Rufus automatically detects your USB, reducing the risk of accidentally formatting your hard drive.

There is a portable version, which eliminates installation work

Rufus has a portable software version, so it does not require any installation. Therefore, you can run the tool immediately after downloading. The tool only asks for permission to automatically check for software updates online, which you can later modify from the settings area.

Besides you can add Rufus to your collection of portable applications and activate it whenever you need to create a USB boot, you can store it on an external device for use on any PC. any need urgent repair.

What is the difference between Rufus and Rufus Portable?

In terms of usage, there is no difference between both versions of Rufus. However, the core thing that differentiates the standard version of Rufus from the portbale version is the rufus.ini file.

Any standard software version needs to be installed properly, which means the files will be extracted and saved in the system drive along with other system items. But the portable version is usually in the form of a compressed file or zip file. Users need to unzip them (including all the files that the software needs to be in that specific folder along with the executable file that can be used to run the software directly). It saves all the settings made by the user to the software inside the extracted folder. Therefore, if you copy the folder in the pen drive and open it to use it on any other computer, you will get the exact settings that you made on the previous computer. So the software is always in your pocket.

 This means there are no entries in the system, no files saved in the Windows home directory, and no need to uninstall it from Control Panel. Whenever you're done, just delete that folder and everything will be the same.

But with Rufus, everything is a little different. Generally, whenever a user changes some settings in the software, it will be saved in .ini file format on windows. And that's the core difference. Simply put, when running the standard Rufus executable, it will not create any .ini files, so no settings will be saved. This means, if you have changed some settings such as language in the regular version, it will only save on that system.

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On the contrary, in the portable version of Rufus, at the time of running the program, it creates a file named 'rufus.ini' in the same folder or location where it was launched. Therefore, if you move the Rufus portable software along with the rufus.ini file, your settings will also be preserved on some other PCs. In general, there is no difference except that the regular version will not create any .ini files, while the portable version will create the corresponding file when run.

Note: The problem is that if you create the .ini installation file manually for use with the regular version, it can also be called a portable file. So don't be confused, if you don't care about the settings you made, then for you, there is no difference at all.

You can get the executable files from the official website. So don't worry about the differences, just download any of them and start creating a bootable drive.

Is Etcher better than Rufus?

Most users prefer Rufus over Etcher, even though they are functionally similar (ISO recording). Both are free and do not require installation. However, Rufus has many advantages over Etcher. On the other hand, Rufus only detects USB so users don't accidentally format their hard drive, while Etcher lists all connected drives. Additionally, Rufus offers more advanced options in the main user interface.

Advantage

1. Easy setup and installation
2. Run Windows 10 from a flash drive
3. Automatically detect USB
4. Windows To Go support

Defect

1. Do not have

Lesley Montoya

Update 09 March 2024