What is this?
Rufus is a free utility for Windows that formats and creates bootable USB flash drives, used to make installers for Windows, Linux, FreeDOS and other bootable ISOs.
Rufus is a free utility for Windows that formats and creates bootable USB flash drives, used to make installers for Windows, Linux, FreeDOS and other bootable ISOs.Is this a GUI tool or a command-line program?It is a small, portable Windows GUI application with no installation required.
It is a small, portable Windows GUI application with no installation required.How do I get it running?Download the Rufus executable (no installer needed) and run it directly on Windows, or build it yourself from source using Visual Studio 2026 or MinGW.
Download the Rufus executable (no installer needed) and run it directly on Windows, or build it yourself from source using Visual Studio 2026 or MinGW.Do I need any extra software first?No extra software is needed to run the prebuilt executable; to compile it yourself you need Visual Studio 2026 (Community Edition is free) or MinGW.
No extra software is needed to run the prebuilt executable; to compile it yourself you need Visual Studio 2026 (Community Edition is free) or MinGW.Does Rufus run on Linux or macOS too?No, Rufus is a Windows-only tool used to prepare USB drives, though it can create bootable media for other OSes like Linux and FreeDOS.
No, Rufus is a Windows-only tool used to prepare USB drives, though it can create bootable media for other OSes like Linux and FreeDOS.Is it really free to use?Yes, Rufus is 100% free software under the GPL v3 license.
Yes, Rufus is 100% free software under the GPL v3 license.What file systems can Rufus format a drive to?It supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, UDF, exFAT, ReFS, ext2 and ext3.
It supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, UDF, exFAT, ReFS, ext2 and ext3.Can Rufus bypass Windows 11's TPM and Secure Boot requirements?Yes, it can create Windows 11 installation drives for PCs that lack TPM or Secure Boot support.
Yes, it can create Windows 11 installation drives for PCs that lack TPM or Secure Boot support.Can it detect fake or counterfeit USB drives?Yes, Rufus performs bad blocks checks that include detection of 'fake' flash drives with inflated advertised capacity.
Yes, Rufus performs bad blocks checks that include detection of 'fake' flash drives with inflated advertised capacity.Can Rufus download Windows ISOs itself?Yes, it can download official Microsoft Windows 8, 10 and 11 retail ISOs, as well as UEFI Shell ISOs, directly within the app.
Yes, it can download official Microsoft Windows 8, 10 and 11 retail ISOs, as well as UEFI Shell ISOs, directly within the app.What are similar projects?Ventoy, ReBarUEFI, CryptoSwift, winutil-cn, BibaYanji, MediaCreationTool.bat, OpenCorePkg, wsl-dashboard
Ventoy, ReBarUEFI, CryptoSwift, winutil-cn, BibaYanji, MediaCreationTool.bat, OpenCorePkg, wsl-dashboard