Which ISO download?

So on ISO download page there are two options for creating ISO. Not sure which one to use. First one says "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" - which sounds fine. But the last one says "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)". Both of them say it's for a bootable dvd or usb. Second one says "multi edition iso which uses your product key to unlock the correct edition". Which is fairly self explanatory, but in that case what is the point of the first one "Create installation media"?

So is the difference that the first one gives you the option to install say home or pro. Whereas the second one just installs automatically whatever version you currently have on the Motherboard?

Media creation tool allows creating installation media and downloading any edition of Windows 11.

Thanks - so why the other option then?

Hazel123 said:

Thanks - so why the other option then?

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The other is a direct download of the ISO .. they all add up to the same thing in the end.,

Hazel123 said:

So on ISO download page there are two options for creating ISO. Not sure which one to use. First one says "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" - which sounds fine. But the last one says "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)". Both of them say it's for a bootable dvd or usb.

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The ISO that the MCT will make will contain the more compact install.esd in its sources folder, while the direct download ISO will have an install.wim. The ESD ISO is 4.16GB vs 5.12GB for the directly downloaded ISO.

Hazel123 said:

...so why the other option then?

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There are a few advanced things for which only an install.wim will do, cutomising the install image and injecting your own drivers, for example.

For normal install or upgrading purposes the two are functionally identical. But the ISO made by the MCT being smaller will fit on a single-layer DVD, and as the install.esd is less than 4GB it can be held on a Fat32 formated USB.

Thanks Bree. As I've only used media creation tool before, I guess the other iso download is because it's Windows 11 and so people can alter it to install on various hardware then. If so, that is very thoughtful of them!

You can create the installer right there, or you can download the ISO file and create the installer yourself.

That is the difference.

Hazel123 said:

I guess the other iso download is because it's Windows 11 and so people can alter it to install on various hardware then. If so, that is very thoughtful of them!

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MS always offered a direct download of an ISO with install.wim for Windows 10, but you had to visit the 'get Windows 10' page with a non-Windows device to see it offered. For those of us running Windows we had to jump through hoops to make our Edge lie to the website that it was an iPad in order to see the direct ISO download link.

For 11 they have done the sensible thing and made the ISO download visible to everyone.

IIRC, on 10 I didn't like MCT, because it has a bad habit of setting up a legacy-style-boot. (Assumes pre-UEFI, thus MBR)
I saw this happen on my second Ryzen system. After I replaced the piece-of-junk SSD and installed a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250 GB SSD, 10 got installed in legacy-mode! The piece-of-junk SSD, was at least booting in pure-UEFI mode. This was after I replaced a SATA SSD with an NVMe SSD.

RJARRRPCGP said:

IIRC, on 10 I didn't like MCT, because it has a bad habit of setting up a legacy-style-boot.

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The MCT always makes an ISO or USB that can boot in both Legacy and UEFI modes. It installs in whichever mode you have chosen to boot it, so if you got a Legacy install it was because you did not see, or were unable to find the correct UEFI boot option in your bios menu.

Bree said:

The MCT always makes an ISO or USB that can boot in both Legacy and UEFI modes. It installs in whichever mode you have chosen to boot it, so if you got a Legacy install it was because you did not see, or were unable to find the correct UEFI boot option in your bios menu.

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That's with my second system specs listing that you will see on TF, my AsRock A320M/ac . Suspect an AsRock BIOS issue.

Looks like I need to force options, like I did with my daily driver, which is listed under System One at ElevenForum as well.

it appears MS quietly posted updated Win11 ISO downloads sometime last week around mid-November that contain build 22000.318 instead of 22000.194

ex.
old Win11 ISO download > Win11_English_x64.iso
new Win11 ISO download > Win11_English_x64v1.iso

the Win11 MCT will also be creating install media with at least 22000.318 instead of the older .194 build

Interesting. I downloaded the iso 2 days ago. I wondered if it was the first/original. It just said x64v1

Hazel123 said:

I downloaded the iso 2 days ago. I wondered if it was the first/original. It just said x64v1

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That looks like it's the newer version of the ISO, but you can easily check to be sure. Look at what it says for the 'ServicePack build' number.

Thanks for that Bree. I got Win11_English_x64v1.iso two nights ago and its build 318

You can compress a .wim to a .esd or decompress a .esd to a .wim if desired.

I usually use wimlib for this kind of thing. Wimlib contains advanced implementataions of compression algorithms . These have been improved over time and now typically outperform and outcompress their Microsoft equivalents. By default, wimlib creates WIM archives using (multithreaded) LZX compression, but options are provided to control the format, chunk size, compression level, number of threads, and whether the compression is done in solid (esd) mode or not.

If you want something with an easy UI, dism++ will do the job.