Installation and Upgrade Create Windows 11 Bootable USB Installation Media

PanosXidis said:

official or insider?

Click to expand...

Official.

Don't suppose anyone else has experienced the Ctfmon.exe Safe mode bug in 23H2? It's over here if your interested.

Windows 11 version 23H2 build 22631.2715 now available to download as ISO or USB with MCT.

After encountering various problems with my brand new PC I decided to attempt a clean install of Windows 11 Pro. Itried to use the first method to create a bootable USB stick only to be met with this error right at the end of the process.



What am I doing wrong? On the side of my PC is this sticker and my current Windows 11 licence is showing as activated. I tried creating this bootable USB on the PC in question. Should I have done this on a different computer?

I originally asked the shop who built my PC and installed Windows to put a clean Windows 11 installation on it which I understand can be done using a Windows 10 licence. Now I seem to be thwarted in my attempts to start from the beginning.

I am not technical and so I was keen to use the first method in this tutorial.



I do have a Windows 10 disk and luckily a DVD/RW drive. Would I have to use this and install Windows 10 first and upgrade to 11? I have never done anything like this before.

AnnieB said:

After encountering various problems with my brand new PC I decided to attempt a clean install of Windows 11 Pro. Itried to use the first method to create a bootable USB stick only to be met with this error right at the end of the process.

View attachment 78445

What am I doing wrong? On the side of my PC is this sticker and my current Windows 11 licence is showing as activated. I tried creating this bootable USB on the PC in question. Should I have done this on a different computer?

I originally asked the shop who built my PC and installed Windows to put a clean Windows 11 installation on it which I understand can be done using a Windows 10 licence. Now I seem to be thwarted in my attempts to start from the beginning.

I am not technical and so I was keen to use the first method in this tutorial.

View attachment 78448

I do have a Windows 10 disk and luckily a DVD/RW drive. Would I have to use this and install Windows 10 first and upgrade to 11? I have never done anything like this before.

Click to expand...

Hello Annie,

If you like, you could use option 2 instead to create a USB from an ISO using Rufus.

Brink said:

Hello Annie,

If you like, you could use option 2 instead to create a USB from an ISO using Rufus.

Click to expand...

@Brink
As a complete novice I am not confident to use the other options. I don't know how to make the correct choices especially at step 6 and I'm not sure whether I would still encounter the same problem as a bit of Googling seems to suggest it might be to do with the activation key which is strange to me.

AnnieB said:

After encountering various problems with my brand new PC I decided to attempt a clean install of Windows 11 Pro. Itried to use the first method to create a bootable USB stick only to be met with this error right at the end of the process.

Click to expand...

When did you download the Media Creation Tool you used? Have you had it for a while?

With the release of 23H2 I found that trying to use a Windows 11 MCT that I had downloaded previously would produce an error like that. Download a new copy of the MCT from Download Windows 11 which will have the name MediaCreationTool_Win11_23H2.exe, this one should work without error, as it did for me.

AnnieB said:

@Brink
As a complete novice I am not confident to use the other options. I don't know how to make the correct choices especially at step 6 and I'm not sure whether I would still encounter the same problem as a bit of Googling seems to suggest it might be to do with the activation key which is strange to me.

Click to expand...

No worries. We'll be happy to guide you through it.

If you're installing W11 on a computer that fully supports W11, then you would uncheck everything at step 6 in option 2.

@Brink
Thank you. I will take a look at it again tomorrow as I've been at it all day today (I'm in the UK) and my head is spinning now, LOL. Hopefully, I'll be more clear-headed to give it another go tomorrow.

@Bree I downloaded it today - I've never attempted anything like this before. It was the new version. I checked the Properties and it matches the screenshot in Step 2 of Option 1.

AnnieB said:

@Brink
Thank you. I will take a look at it again tomorrow as I've been at it all day today (I'm in the UK) and my head is spinning now, LOL. Hopefully, I'll be more clear-headed to give it another go tomorrow.

Click to expand...

You're most welcome. Please just let us know if you have any questions when ready.

Update: I managed to create the bootable USB stick with Option 1 after updating a couple of drivers through Windows Update.

Next, I am going to attempt the Windows 11 clean installation but I have a few questions before I start which I'll post on the Clean Install Windows 11 post.

What if your starting point is Windows 7?

This is an extremely useful tutorial. Of course. Brink wrote it. Hey man. Glad to see you here.

I am posting because I have done things slightly differently.

First, a little background. I am running Windows 7. This has an impact, at least that's my hypothesis, on the advice in this tutorial. This W7 system is on hardware built by me 8 years ago. Yes, antique. But it still runs. I'm posting this from that system. Earlier this year I tried to tweak it a bit. I decided to try adding the maximum RAM the motherboard would accept, which is 32G of DDR3. I looked at the table of approved RAM listed in the motherboard manual (a paper document, what a concept!) & settled upon some GSkill DDR3 1600 DIMMs, 2x16G. When I installed the DIMMs, the system wouldn't even give me a BIOS flash screen. I guess DDR3 available today is simply not compatible with this antique motherboard. When I went back to my original 2x4G DIMMs, the system returned to functionality.

I also thought I might try moving my W7 boot environment to an SSD. This motherboard does have an M2 slot. I read on sevenforums about things you have to add to W7 in order to support PCIe NVMe devices. I believe I did upgrade my operating system correctly. However, the SSD I got was not recognized by the BIOS. At least I was able to get into the BIOS after installing the SSD. But I couldn't find anything that would have prevented the SSD from being recognized. So I never even got to the point of proving whether my modifications to W7 worked. So there's another shortcoming of this antique hardware.

I probably would have lived indefinitely without being able to add a couple of fancy modern bits to my hardware. But Mozilla decided to shunt me off to the ESR channel & set a deadline of 1 year before they quit supporting Firefox on W7 altogether. I've had a few updates to Firefox since that announcement. But I took this as really the last straw.

I have built a new computer with new hardware: Asus motherboard Z790 with WiFi & Bluetooth, Intel 13th generation i9 13900K, Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000, Samsung 2T PCIe NVMe SSD, MSI 1000W PSU, MSI GPU NVidia RTX 4070 with 12G GDDR6. I have learned that it doesn't matter what you have, you will outgrow it. So all of my existing internal SATA HDDs will be in external SATA-to-USB enclosures, & any new HDDs I get will simply be USB drives of some ridiculous number of T. I am already using a 20T USB HDD for backups so I envision more like that & larger in my future.

This build was a nightmare, mostly because none of this hardware is anything at all like what I have built in the past. In the past, you could look at things like connectors & see that they can be attached in only one way. Now . . . Forget it. Even the power supply is different. The CPU cooler reminds me of those large buildings where NASA builds rockets. The GPU takes its own power feed from the PSU & occupies 2 slots on the backplane of the case. Video card is most assuredly not the right terminology for this monstrosity. It goes in an expansion slot, like cards I have known in the past, but it's in no way a card. These were all bits of knowledge I had to hunt down, learn, internalize, & finally put into use. But I now have a new computer that works.

But it is bare. So here's where this tutorial comes in. I have a 480G USB SSD. External, but not a thumb drive. I have been using this SSD to boot the Macrium Reflect rescue environment, from which I've been backing up my W7 boot drive. I've been using 2 identical such SSDs for these backups because hey, it's my system. I want a redundant backup of that. It's good enough to have single backups of my data, but I want 2 of my system. So I have repurposed one of these USB SSDs for my proposed Windows 11 install media.

I started by following the instructions above to get the Media Creation Tool. Then I executed it. Remember now, I'm doing this on my one functioning computer, which means I'm running the MCT in W7. MCT downloaded whatever it does at about 9 million bytes per second (according to Resource Monitor), so it wasn't a painfully long wait. Then it verified the download. Then it started creating files. Somewhere between 20% & 30% complete, it died with the message that there was an error. An error. That's all it told me. An error. What self-respecting programmer writes software that generates an error message that says simply, "There has been an error" without any further explicatory information? Rhetorical question. Still, it peeves me no end.

Of course, you never accept a single failure. You always try it again. The second time, I was getting 15 million bytes per second download speed. But I got the same failure. I imagine the MCT doesn't work properly on W7. And what chance do you think I have that there will be any bug correction or even investigation of this error on a W7 platform? Expressions like "vanishingly small," "infinitessimal," "slim to none & slim left town," "you're dreaming in technicolor" come to mind.

Time to try Rufus. I follow the instructions above & get the latest Rufus. Run it. Pops up a message that the last release of Rufus that ran on W7 was version such-and-such. Like I'm surprised. So I go get version such-and-such. It at least opens the GUI. But the very top item is meant to be a drop down list showing me my choices of possible target devices for this application. The drop down list doesn't drop down & there's nothing listed there. I also can't type into the field. Great. So I get the next older version. Same failure. Rufus is not my friend.

So it's time to get my own ISO. Followed the instructions above. Got my ISO. 23H2, in case that's of any interest or relevance, which I'm not sure it is, but I don't know for certain. Went through the diskpart commands & they created the 2 partitions on the USB SSD. Proof that the failure of Rufus to recognize the device is bogus. Diskpart worked on the device. It's functional. Recognized. Rufus is at fault. Again, what chance is there that this problem will be fixed? </rant> So then I try to mount the ISO. Mount? That is a concept alien to W7. This functionality is not present in W7. But I have something called PeaZip. It unzips ISO files. Unzip. An ISO is just a zip archive. This is something I learned when I was successfully doing a Repair Install on this W7 system a couple of years ago, a story you can read about on sevenforums if you're so inclined. So I unzipped the ISO onto one of my HDDs. Then I followed the instructions above & copied directories wholesale, from the HDD to the SSD, using the standard tools of the W7 file manager. Then I copied boot.wim from one partition to the other, as instructed above, & deleted it from its original location. The instructions say to do a Cut & Paste, not a Copy & Paste. So that's what I did.

My attempts to get the install to work hit some snags, which I will be documenting in another discussion here, so I won't go into details on that in this thread. But I was inspired to create my bootable USB SSD over again. I realized that I could do the same thing in a perhaps more user-friendly manner using Administative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management. I had originally included some additional data in the partition named above as Y. But I decided perhaps that would confuse the W11 installer. So I created a third partition on the USB SSD containing the extras I want to bring from my W7 system without needing to connect to the Internet on the W11 system. I'm talking about such things as my usual zip/unzip utility (which is not PeaZip). This is a tool I have been using for about 25 years. It happens to be a Java application. A standalone Java application. Not an applet that runs in the browser. So this third partition contains Java. Also Notepad++. And a couple of other things. Also a few things that will need to connect to the Internet, like Firefox, my antivirus, & some more. I decided to assign the partitions the letters U, V, & W. There's nothing intrinsic in naming the partitions X & Y. When you run the W11 install, it assigns those partitions other letters anyway. Letters which you can then change yet again once the install works. I appreciate that choosing X & Y makes it simpler to write the tutorial. But people should understand that the letters are arbitrary. I imagine some people already have X or Y partitions. They already have to use some other letters. Just pointing out this subtle possibility.

During this reconstruction of my W11 bootable install USB SSD, I decided to just leave boot.wim in both partitions. I have managed to install W11 now from this SSD. It works. Three partitions. Boot.wim in 2 locations. I have a functioning W11 that boots from the internal SSD. So my slight tweaks to the advice above do work.

Why do I have a third partition with things from my W7 system? Because I have not yet dismantled my W7 system & put those internal SATA HDDs into those external SATA-to-USB enclosures. Like I said, I'm posting this from my W7 system. It will live for a while before I have gotten the W11 system to the point where it is ready to be my everyday system. It's not to that point yet. Yet. It will get there. But it's not there yet.

I don't like W11 yet. There are some customizations I need to make before I will consider it usable. Like changing the system default font. Haven't figured that one out yet. And I do have to eventually connect that box to the Internet & really get things configured. You know, system updates, drivers, & all that. So it will be a while before I definitively, reluctantly say good-bye to W7. But I am now optimistic it will happen.

I offer this in the hopes that others currently trying to get off W7 will find this helpful.

Why are you wed to Mrs W7? It can't support USB3 and is not secure> You'd be better running it as a virtual machine under W11.

I'm not wedded to W7. I don't think of it at all as a she. Nor a he, for that matter. It's just an operating system, not my companion. Maybe more like my caddie, but even that metaphor is a stretch. I've got a W11 here now & I will gradually cut over to it. The reasons you cite for preferring W11 are perfectly valid. (By the way, my W7 system has USB3 ports.) My motivations were not quite those but those are things I'm looking forward to benefiting from. I'll get there. It will just take a minute or two. Running W7 in a VM seems like a lot of work to preserve something I'm not particularly interested in preserving. I am reconciled to relegating my W7 system to the dust heap of history. Like pitching the ball that just got you a triple bogey into the water hazard. I just can't go to W11 cold turkey today. Cold turkey is for later this week. Going to W11 may take me longer than that.

WildWilly said:

What if your starting point is Windows 7?

Click to expand...

Hello Willy, and welcome. It's good to see you here.

Before doing anything, it would be recommended to check if your system meets the requirements for Windows 11 below.

But does your W7 have drivers for USB 3, I've read they are not available?

PS, I was being facetious!

What is this weird usb3 idea ? usb 3 drivers are not in box with win7 but they are available.

I think you might have heard people having difficulty using the installation media media via a usb3 port because the drivers are not already included in the installation media. Mobo manufacturers provided tools to update the installation media with the appropriate drivers.The tools typically also included the two updates that provide win7 nvme support.

Win7 Recovery media from dell and similar already have the usb3 drivers and nvme support included as well as their wallpapers , logos and so on.

I'm pretty sure I've got USB3 drivers on W7. I think this image confirms that.



I suspect that back in prehistoric times (when Microsoft was still providing updates to W7), there might have been an update that added USB3 support. Or it was already in the system with the original install media. I can't reconstruct the history of this.

As for hardware compatibility, you're too late, Brink. Rare for you. I've already installed W11 on the box. I hope that means all the hardware is compatible. My salesman at Micro Center did assure me that was the case & I think my experience has borne that out. I do admit I haven't done much with it yet besides just get it to show me a desktop. So gators may be lurking in the weeds. For now, it looks good.

And I hope you (Kelper, or is that really kelper?) did catch my own facetiousness in my reply above.

Asus motherboard Z790 with WiFi & Bluetooth, Intel 13th generation i9 13900K, Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000, Samsung 2T PCIe NVMe SSD, MSI 1000W PSU, MSI GPU NVidia RTX 4070 with 12G GDDR6.

Click to expand...

People have win7 running on recent series intel mobos. Apparently some manufacturers are less difficult than others. But win7 doesnt seem to understand the p core e core thing and thinks there are two cpus. It functions, but probably not using the cores efficiently.

No such difficulty with the amd mobos and cpus. I havent tried it myself, but from what i have heard it works well with amd stuff. That doesnt mean everything works straight away. Apparently some built in wifi cards dont have win7 drivers - they can be swapped for a card that does have win7 support, or use a dongle thing. There is a bit of fiddling around, but it can be done with careful motherboard selection.

SIW2 said:

People have win7 running on . . .

Click to expand...

I hope I didn't mislead you or anybody else. That description of hardware is for my new computer for which I used this tutorial to create W11 install media on W7. I'm not trying to run W7 on that hardware. I have W7 running on stinky 8-year-old hardware that I have not detailed here. That stinky old hardware created my W11 install media, which I then used on the hardware I've described upthread.