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Creating Bootable USB Installation Media for Windows Server – Redmondmag.com

Creating Bootable USB Installation Media for Windows Server – Redmondmag.com

Posey’s tips and tricks

Creating a bootable USB installation media for Windows Server

The process can be bumpy, as you can see from my attempt.

As someone who writes extensively about all things Windows, I install the Windows operating system quite often. Most of the time, these installations are aimed at setting up virtual machines. When I need to set up a physical machine, I usually rely on an installation DVD. However, recently I purchased some new servers and these machines do not come with optical drives. With that in mind, I thought this might be a good time to write about what goes into preparing a USB flash drive for use as Windows Server installation media.

To install Windows Server from a bootable USB flash drive, you will need a few things. First, you will need a flash drive that you can use. The flash drive must be empty (the preparation process will result in all data on the flash drive being erased). The flash drive must be at least 8GB, which shouldn’t be a problem since almost all flash drives sold today are significantly larger.

You will also need an ISO file containing the Windows Server installation media. You can download the required ISO file directly from Microsoft.

Additionally, you will need a freeware utility called Rufus. Rufus is the utility that you use to make your USB flash drive bootable. You can download Rufus here.

The other thing you need is a PC running a desktop Windows operating system. This PC is used to prepare USB flash drive. For the purposes of this article, I’m using a PC running Windows 11.

To get started, install Rufus on your Windows PC. The installation process is completely effortless. All you need to do is double-click the Rufus executable and then tell the installer whether you want Rufus to automatically check for updates or not.

Once you have Rufus up and running, connect the USB flash drive you want to use as installation media. When you do this, the Rufus interface update should display the Device field to show the USB flash drive you just connected. If Rufus doesn’t automatically detect your flash drive, you can select it from the Device drop-down list.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1. Select your USB flash drive from the Device drop-down list.

Next, you need to select “Hard Drive” or “ISO Image” option from the “Boot Selection” drop-down list. Next, click the “Select” button and then provide Rufus with the path to your Windows Server ISO file. When choosing, you need to make sure that the “Image” option is set to “Standard Windows installation” and the partition scheme is set to “MBR”. You also need to set the target system to BIOS as shown in Figure 2.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 2.Set the “Image” option to “Standard Windows Installation”.

Typically, you don’t need to worry about changing the disk label, file system, or cluster size. The default values ​​should be fine. Go ahead and click on the “Start” button.

When you click Start, you’ll be greeted with a command prompt that contains options for customizing your Windows installation, as shown in Figure 3. For example, you can disable BitLocker encryption or disable data collection. Choose your preferred customization options and click OK.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 3. Choose your preferred customization options and click OK

At this point I received an error message on my system. The message stated that the ISO was revoked and that using it would result in a BSOD error if Secure Boot was enabled. However, I was able to click OK and continue with the deployment process. You can see the error in Figure 4.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 4. I was able to ignore this error message.

Although creating a USB flash drive that can be used to install Windows Server is relatively easy, I recommend something else. It’s a good idea to create a folder on your flash drive (after Rufus has prepared the drive) and copy any necessary device drivers into the folder. Often the Windows Server installer cannot recognize a server’s hard drives until a storage driver has been installed. Having the storage driver available and ready to use can help save a lot of time in the setup process.

About the author


Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide range of IT topics. Before becoming a freelancer, Posey was the CIO of a national chain of hospitals and healthcare facilities. He also served as a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in the country and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in the IT field, Posey has been actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in recent years in preparation for flight on a mission to explore polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight education on his website.