Rufus 3.14 on W11 -- Works even to create WK19 Server as WintoGo system

Hi there

Rufus 3.14 on W11 works perfectly even to create W2K19 server WintoGo system on external USB (the W2K19 server install iso also has install-esd rather than install-wim but still works and no need to convert the install-esd to install-wim) and the old error where boot on these devices would fail (BSOD - can't find / missing Boot device) because you needed the 1803 version of wpprecorder.sys rather than the 1809 version seems to be fixed.

Again please note that using the WintoGo option in Rufus - you get the basic start up as per clean install - so unless you do a bit of "poodle-fakery" with the install iso you can't "clone" an existing system by this method. You'll need to modify the iso with your changes if you don't want a "Clean installed system" before using the rufus tool.

I like running this as a "Desktop OS" rather than a server to compare with W10/W11 performance wise etc. You have to do a few things to get this to operate decently as a workstation OS but perfectly do-able and worth it if you have access to a license !!!

It's very fast and efficient - both in bootup and operation once you've eliminated all the server specific nags and start up tools etc and changed the ownership to your user rather than "Administrator"

I also like using WintoGo systems on external USB devices because I can test on REAL hardware and don't have to touch / alter anything on the internal HDD's -- also quite fun running this type of server on an average laptop !!!! and very instructional forr learning a bit about Ms's servers.

Cheers
jimbo

Yup - made the original USB for it a sa test using Rufus. It works well.

Rufus works perfectly to create Manjaro and Fedora Rawhide boot disks as well

New 3.15 has a fix for openSUSE Live .ISOs, among other things.

3.15 does have the ability to create ISO so you can use this for backup of the working install prior to updating or just as a safety measure. It should also ,assuming suitable space on the WtG install, be possible to add the ISO for the later build into the WTG install either internally from the WtG or externally from the parent OS and then mount this from within the WTG and upgrade the OS, retaining the applications and settings .

It's a great thing for testing, On my desktop, [System 1 in specs here ], Rufus installed onto an external NVME in around 45 seconds

barman58 said:

3.15 does have the ability to create ISO so you can use this for backup of the working install prior to updating or just as a safety measure. It should also ,assuming suitable space on the WtG install, be possible to add the ISO for the later build into the WTG install either internally from the WtG or externally from the parent OS and then mount this from within the WTG and upgrade the OS, retaining the applications and settings .

It's a great thing for testing, On my desktop, [System 1 in specs here ], Rufus installed onto an external NVME in around 45 seconds

Click to expand...

Hi there
I do that now -- thanks for the tip -- external NVME also gives great performance so as you say absolutely great for testing on Real Hardware !!!!

Not sure why Ms deprecated Win2Go -- it;s also brilliant if you want different languages, different versions of Office etc etc without having to mess around with your primary HDD.

Cheers
jimbo.