Portable means it doesnt have to be installed , it doesnt write things to the registry and it doesnt make any folders outside the folder its in .
Then Rufus has never been "portable", because the portable version of Rufus has always altered the registry. I alluded to that above. And that is why I am going to skip this whole "true nature of portability" debate. Please refer to my earlier post.
@Akeo Interesting. Since Microsoft made it easy to make bootable Windows 10 installation media I have not used Rufus in a while. I recently installed Windows 11 on my computer using their Installation Assistant and made a bootable Windows 11 flash drive using their Media Creation Tool. Out of curiosity I downloaded your Rufus 3.16 Beta #2 and ran it using a formatted 32GB USB 2.0 flash drive. When I click on the SELECT tab I do not get the DOWNLOAD option. It opens File Explorer and is looking for an ISO image. Is this because I am using it in Windows 11?
@Akeo When I make the bootable USB for MBR disks using Rufus and boot from that USB, I get "press any key to boot from USB" Why do I have to press an additional key to be able to boot from USB when I have already pressed the Bios key to boot from USB? Feels like either the bootloader Rufus uses for MBR disks is dumb or it assumes that we, the users are dumb. Doesn't happen with other tools. Why can't Rufus use the same bootloader as those other tools?
Because not all BIOSes/boot configurations require a key to boot from USB. A lot of (most) BIOS based PCs will be configured to automatically boot from USB whenever there is a bootable drive plugged in, and boot from internal disk otherwise. So, for these configurations, and because Windows reboots during install, we must prevent the USB from booting into the USB installer over and over again, and mimick the behaviour of the Windows ISO when it is burned and booted from optical media, where it will prompt the user to press a key to boot from the CD/DVD media. Again, the goal of Rufus is to replicate, as close as possible, the behaviour from the optical media, and the default of Windows ISO media, when booted in BIOS mode from a DVD drive, is to ask the user to press a key to boot from the media (i.e. Rufus didn't invent this behaviour: Microsoft added it to their ISO for BIOS boot). Therefore, Rufus does the same thing when booting from USB in BIOS mode. Note that this only applies to BIOS mode, since UEFI allows the booted media to alter the boot order for next reboot, to prevent the kind of infinite loops that the "press a key to boot from this media" is designed to prevent in BIOS mode. And before you ask, no, it is not possible to detect whether your BIOS already asked for a key to boot from USB or not. There's no BIOS API that allows a low level application to get that information. So Rufus must account for the most probable situation, which is different from your specific configuration, where users have USB first in their BIOS boot order and where the prompt about pressing a key is a necessity. And please also bear in mind that this is a Windows installation specific thing. So other tools, especially the ones that create boot media from Linux ISOHybrid images, will not exhibit this behaviour, because a Linux installation process doesn't need to go through multiple reboots to complete the installation (and, it needs to be pointed out, you also won't get the prompt from Rufus created media when using a Linux ISO).
Thank you for the detailed explanation. However I find it dumb to have your USB set as first boot device in Bios options, that should always be the system drive.
Not if, say, you have Windows installed and want to run Linux occasionally from live media so that you don't have to sacrifice disk space (as well as your sanity) for dual boot. Just being able to plug a drive and reboot is more convenient than having to press a key at a specific right time. For one thing, it allows you to go for a cup of coffee while your other system boots since you don't have to be actively present for the boot sequence. I would say that there's probably a majority of people (myself included) who prefer to have bootable USB media get priority on any system. Maybe, in my case, that's because I test bootable media a lot so if my only option was to have to press F8 every time I want to check that a media boots, I'd be pretty annoyed... In short, you may be weary of extrapolating your conditions and preferences as something that everybody else will want. There's no "one-size-fits-all" in computing, and, sometimes, you may actually find that you're in a minority of people who want to have things a specific way...
Are people receiving security updates for non supported Pcs? I wantes to try in my old 1St generation i5, no uefi, no tpm but not receiving security updates (like Ms said) would be a no go.
Can you install the updates manually from MS update catalog? I disable update on Win10 as it fragments and slows down OS after some time. I only update if some major issue or vulnerability is discovered.
There used to be a time when Windows setup would prompt you to remove installation media before the first reboot. On my system the boot order automatically reverts to the system drive during Windows setup. I have to change it back if I want to boot from external drive again. IMHO Windows setup has too much access to the BIOS/UEFI. This is dangerous, and has already bricked several HP and DELL laptops. Windows 10 setup changed my drives to GPT. Windows 11 setup is going to try to enable TPM and secure boot. I'm happy with the way Rufus is. Support for more OSs and support for multi-boot configurations is welcome. My laptop refuses to run a live distro - I've tried several - so I either have to run another OS in a VM, or dual boot.
I think Rufus is for retirement. Not very useful if you need disable Secure Boot to install Win 11. Luckily I have a few alternatives. I won't use it anymore.