Rufus is a free and open-source bootable USB installer creating tool developed by Pete Batard from Ireland. The first thing that went through my mind when saw its name is the character Rufus Shinra in Final Fantasy VII. So what does it excel at, compared with the classical UNetbootin, powerful Universal USB Installer, reliable Windows USB/DVD Download Tool and fast Win32 Disk Imager?

No need to repeat the usage and purpose about such kind of UBS OS installer/maker (mainly used for OS installation or Live CD), here AppNee only talks about its several better places than other famous similar applications. First, Rufus has a smaller file size (less than 1 MB, AppNee calls any software with <1 MB file size to be "Tiny App") and simple, friendly UI that lets a user feel amiable and familiar; Next, comprehensive features design (humanized "Partition scheme and target system type", "File System", "Cluster size", "Volume Label" customizations, as well as the important "Format Options") and faster formatting/creating speed; Comes with FreeDOS (although for the vast majority of users this seems to be useless - making a Linux Live CD at random will be much more helpful than DOS).

Key Features

  • Format USB, flash card and virtual drives to FAT/FAT32/NTFS/UDF/exFAT/ReFS
  • Create DOS bootable USB drives, using FreeDOS or MS-DOS (Windows 8.1 or earlier)
  • Create BIOS or UEFI bootable drives, including UEFI bootable NTFS
  • Create bootable drives from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, etc.)
  • Create bootable drives from bootable disk images, including compressed ones
  • Create Windows To Go drives
  • Compute MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 checksums of the selected image
  • Twice as fast as Microsoft's USB/DVD tool or UNetbootin, on ISO -> USB creation (1)
  • Perform bad blocks checks, including detection of "fake" flash drives
  • Modern and familiar UI, with 39 languages natively supported
  • Small footprint. No installation required.
  • Portable
  • 100% Free Software (GPL v3)

Use Cases

  • Create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.)
  • Work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed
  • Flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
  • Run a low-level utility

Tips

  • After making into a USB installer using Rufus or any other similar tools, your mobile storage devices can still be used to store files as usual!
  • v2.18 can solve the "Access to the device is denied" error.
  • v2.18 has more and more powerful functions than the new versions, such as:
    • supports longer volume label
    • supports more file systems
    • supports more partition schemes and target system types
    • provides advanced options like "Add fixes for old BIOSes (extra partition, align, etc.)", "Use Rufus MBR with BIOS ID"

Related Links

Download URLs

License Version Download Size
Freeware Latest  (mir) n/a
(Homepage | GitHub)