Rufus is a free utility for Windows that allows you to create a bootable version of Windows from a USB drive. Its latest version is now available and will be of particular interest to IT professionals wishing to install Windows 11 on computers without a TPM chip. Rufus is a well-known program among IT technicians and other knowledgeable enthusiasts. This free software makes it very easy to create bootable media, the same ones that are used to reinstall Windows or Linux. In short, Rufus transfers the ISO image file of an operating system into a USB drive (most often). Simply select this support as the boot disk when you restart your computer to enjoy a portable version of Windows.
RUFUS 3.22 BETA ALLOWS WINDOWS 11 TO BE LAUNCHED FROM A USB DRIVE ON A NON-COMPATIBLE PC
Rufus 3.22 beta is primarily intended for experienced users. To take advantage of its new features, you need to compile the code provided on Github. Once done, it will be possible to disable Bitlocker encryption, the feature that secures all data on a hard drive under Windows, from the program interface.
This feature is added to other options such as removing the 4 GB RAM requirement, Secure Boot, TPM chip, or having an online Microsoft account. This way, it is possible to create a portable version of Windows 11 that is compatible with computers that do not meet the officially required hardware requirements to use the latest Microsoft OS.
Furthermore, Rufus now supports hardware acceleration of SHA-1 and SHA-256 cryptographic functions. Unfortunately, it abandons support for Windows 7, which still powers just over 5% of PCs in the world, despite being released over fourteen years ago.
Here is the complete changelog for Rufus 3.22 Beta:
- Add SHA-1 and SHA-256 x86 acceleration on CPUs that support it
- Add an option to disable BitLocker device encryption in the Windows User Experience dialog
- Add a cheat mode (Ctrl-P) to preserve the log between sessions
- Fix potential media creation errors by forcing the unmount of stale .wim images
- Fix potential access errors in ISO → ESP mode by forcing Large FAT32 formatting
- Fix user-specified label not being preserved on error/cancel
- Fix some large SSD devices being listed by default
- Fix processing of Rock Ridge CE fields
- Work around the use of Rock Ridge symbolic links for Linux firmware packages (Debian)
- Remove the ISO download feature on Windows 7
