If you visit the same link from a non-Windows device, such as a Mac or a Linux device or any smartphone, you'll land on the official ISO download page: If you visit the link using a Windows device, you'll be redirected to the Windows Media Creation Tool like this: You can download Windows 10 directly from Microsoft for free using this link. That's right - everything we're going to do here is 100% legal and sanctioned by Microsoft. You can download the ISO file straight from Microsoft.

In this tutorial we'll show you how you can set this up from a Mac. Luckily, Microsoft makes a tool that you can use to install Windows from a USB storage drive (or 'thumbdrive' as they are often called).īut what if you don't have a second PC for setting up that USB storage drive in the first place? So it can be a pain to install Windows on a new computer. I also used my trusty label maker to mark it as the “BOOT” drive.Most new PCs don't come with DVD drives anymore.

It’s more convenient to have both ports, and if I’m working on a PC at someone else’s home, I don’t have to remember to bring adapters. The important feature for me is that it has both USB Type-A and USB Type-C connectors - I use a mix of new and old computers, some of which only have the older Type-A, and some that only have the newer Type-C. I didn’t have a spare flash drive already, so I ended up purchasing a 256 GB SanDisk Dual Drive Go, which happens to be one of our picks for the best USB flash drive. Storage capacity is also important, as we’re now long past the era of install media fitting on a 700MB CD-R - the Windows 11 installer is over 5 GB. If you have an old or cheap flash drive with poor read and write speeds, then it can take longer to boot up and perform installations. Two factors matter the most for turning a USB drive into a boot drive: performance and storage capacity.

Windows usb bootable