I always thought the process of creating Windows USB media was pretty simple: take a USB key, format it as FAT32, then XCOPY the contents of an ISO to that USB key. But there are some complications:
- If the WIM file is larger than 4GB, you need to split it since a FAT32 drive doesn’t support files that are larger than 4GB.
- If the USB drive is bigger than 32GB, Windows won’t format it. And on OSes older than 1703 (e.g. Windows Server 2016), they don’t like USB drives with multiple partitions.
So, I’ve updated the Media Tool again. As before, you can get the latest version from GitHub at this link:
This updated version lets you choose between creating an ISO and creating USB media:
For media, it will show you a list of available removable USB drives on the system. It will reformat the drive as FAT32 (even if it already is FAT32, so it will wipe anything that is currently on the drive), then write the content. In the case of the INSTALL.WIM (created from the downloaded ESD file from Windows Update), it will split that WIM into chunks that are slightly smaller than the 4GB file size limit.
If by chance you try to use a USB drive that is larger than 32GB, PowerShell can’t format that (yet?). As a workaround, the tool will create a single 32GB partition on the USB drive and format that instead as FAT32, leaving the rest of the USB key unused.
There are also some additional disk space checks to make sure there is enough space for the ESD file download before starting it, along with a few other minor tweaks.
As always, if you run into any other issues, or if you have any suggestions or feedback, feel free to submit issues via the GitHub repository.
Out of Office Hours 
13 responses to “Another Media Tool release, this one with USB support”
Hello. Why a list is empty ?
Initializing.
Downloading manifests.
0 images are available.
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Three possibilities:
1. It can’t download the needed CAB files, https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=2156292 and https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=841361.
2. It can’t run “expand.exe” to extract the contents of those CAB files.
3. The %TEMP% folder isn’t writable?
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Without vpn the site microsoft.com dont opening.
What are the options in this case?
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Use a machine on a different network?
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microsoft is blocked in our country 😔
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Then this is never going to work — everything it does requires downloading from Microsoft’s Windows Update servers.
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I get the following error message: “I get the following error message: “The Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) is not installed. It is required to create an ISO.”
Can you please help me?
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Well, it’s telling you what you need to do: You need to install the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK). You can download that from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2271337.
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I’m not able to boot to the ARM64 ISOs in Hyper-V on a Windows 11 24H2 ARM64 system. I tried with the “Do not require pressing a key” setting and without. I’ve also tried with the Sept 23 ADK and the May 24 ADK. Any guidance?
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I have a theory, need to do some testing — might take a couple of days to get around to it.
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I looked at the code in MediaTool.psm1 and found the issue. It is hard coded to use the amd64 version of oscdimg.exe, efisys.bin, and efisys_noprompt.bin. If I alter the code to use the arm64 versions from the ADK instead of the amd64 versions, it creates a bootable ISO if the tool is run from an ARM64 Windows OS.
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Yes, that was my theory — it needs to use the boot files based on the ISO being created, but use the oscdimg.exe based on the OS it is running on. Just requires some testing to make sure that works as expected (putting paths for the efisys files is messy).
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How do the images provided via this tool differentiate from the one that is created with the official Media Creation Tool from Microsoft?
I’ve recently build a new PC with M2 SDD disks, and tried to install Windows 11 Pro x64 v24H2 via image downloaded from your tool, but it couldn’t find any disks to install on, and providing the driver as instructed by vendor did not make the disk visible.
However, installing via USB created with Media Creation Tool installed without any issues and without having to add any drivers.
Thanks.
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