Rufus: The Reliable USB Formatting Utility
Features
- Format USB and Virtual HD drives to FAT/FAT32/NTFS/UDF/exFAT/ReFS
- Create DOS bootable USB drives, using FreeDOS or MS-DOS
- Create BIOS or UEFI bootable drives, including UEFI bootable NTFS
- Create bootable drives from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, etc.)
- Create bootable drives from bootable disk images, including compressed ones
- Create Windows To Go drives
- Twice as fast as Microsoft's USB/DVD tool or UNetbootin, on ISO -> USB creation (1)
- Perform bad blocks checks, including detection of "fake" flash drives
- Modern and familiar UI, with more than 35 languages natively supported
- Small footprint. No installation required.
- Portable
- 100% Free Software (GPL v3)
Compilation
Use either Visual Studio 2015, WDK 7.1 (Windows Driver Kit) or MinGW and then
invoke the .sln
, wdk_build.cmd
or configure
/make
respectively.
Visual Studio
Note that, since Rufus is an OSI compliant Open Source project, you are entitled to download and use the freely available [Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition] (http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community-vs) to build, run or develop for Rufus. As per the Visual Studio Community Edition license this applies regardless of whether you are an individual or a corporate user. For details, see this.
Additional information
Rufus provides extensive information about what it is doing, either through its easily accessible log, or through the Windows debug facility.
Enhancements/Bugs
Please use the GitHub issue tracker for reporting problems or suggesting new features.
(1) Tests carried out with a 16 GB USB 3.0 ADATA pen drive on a Core 2 duo/4 GB RAM platform running Windows 7 x64.
ISO: en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_618240.iso
Name of tool | Version | Time |
---|---|---|
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool | v1.0.30 | 8 mins 10s |
UNetbootin | v1.1.1.1 | 6 mins 20s |
Rufus | v1.1.0 | 3 mins 25s |