For a long time, Microsoft didn’t sell Windows install media in the form of bootable USB flash drives. Instead, it prefered to stick to old-school DVD media, despite the fact that many notebooks today ...

Running Windows completely off of a USB flash drive is quite handy if you want to try a newer or older version of Windows without affecting your current system. The USB drive can also serve as a ...

Rufus is a free, portable utility that creates bootable USB flash drives from ISO files. As of 2026, the latest version is Rufus 4.13 — and it’s faster and more capable than ever, with built-in ...

Load up a USB drive with the right software, and you’ll have a complete toolkit to restart, troubleshoot, and repair Windows PCs. I’ve learned to keep a collection of useful Windows tools and repair ...

However, things have moved on, and for the first time, Microsoft has begun to sell Windows 10 on pre-configured USB drives. Previous versions of the OS (XP, 7 and 8.1), all require the user to create ...