Here is a non exhaustive list of tested sources with download links where possible.
In short:
- Any Windows version for PC starting from 2000- XP, 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Server 2012, 8, WinFLPC and so on. It supports both 32 and 64 bits versions. For XP/2003 versions there is advanced option to prepare source to be installed onto USB disk.
- UBCD4Win, BartPE, WinBuilder etc. PE1 based source
- Windows PE2 and above based source
- Many GNU Linux based sources- Ubuntu, Fedora, many antivirus rescue disks etc. etc. refer to this page for more
- DOS based ISOs such as UBCD
- other ISO images as long as they are compatible with grub4dos ISO emulation- Acronis True Image ISO, Paragon Boot Media to name a few
In addition the program can add Syslinux boot entry and boot such source, which boots using Syslinux or Isolinux.
Yes, just add them one after another, i.e. add first source of the same type, press GO, when finished transferring it onto the USB disk add the second, press GO and so on. There is no need to restart the program between each source. The only two exceptions, when multiple similar sources are not supported, are PE1 (BartPE, UBCD4Win…) and Syslinux based ones.
- Try the integrated DPMS option before starting Text mode, try “Auto-detect and use F6 SATA/RAID/SCSI Driver” menu first, if that doesn’t work for you and Setup bluescreens or hangs for example, then try “Auto-detect and use F6 SATA/RAID/SCSI Driver + Firadisk“. It would select and add the appropriate mass storage driver to a virtual floppy, which will be used by Setup to add the needed drivers.
- Integrate BTS mass storage drivers pack into your source before preparing the USB disk. Make sure Text mode option is selected. Including other driver packs (Sound, Video etc.) makes such source quite universal.
- Switch AHCI(SATA) mode to IDE (Compatible) in BIOS if there is such option.
- Integrate the proper mass storage drivers with nLite beforehand.
- Supply a floppy image with the appropriate SATA/AHCI drivers using the advanced option “Custom drivers/F6 floppy image for 2000/XP/2003 Setup“. It needs to have txtsetup.oem file in it and be suitable for Text mode part of the installer.
- On some motherboards USB booting is tricky, common example are many Dell systems. A modified NTDETECT.COM usually solves the problem. Next use the advanced option “Custom NTDETECT.COM file for 2000/XP/2003 Setup” to select the custom NTDETECT.COM and use when source is prepared
- The source does not have the appropriate mass storage (SATA, AHCI) drivers, refer to A3 for solutions
It expects partitioned and formatted disk with MBR (Master boot record) and an active partition. Typically, unless already partitioned with another tool or diskpart in Vista and later, Windows does not format blank USB removable media (most USB sticks) in such way, instead, they are formatted as a superfloppy with no MBR and single partition occupying the whole space, thus not bootable.
Either use the auto-format option, or use one of the tools RMPrepUSB, FBInst or BootIce to repartition and format it.
Generally speaking- yes. Due to the numerous ways to customize XP for example, it’s hard to test every kind of customization, hence severely modified sources may not install properly. In case of NT6 (Vista and above) customized source, as long as updates or hotfixes are integrated into install.wim and using setupcomplete.cmd script, which seeks for files on the system drive, rather than the source DVD, there should be no issues.
- Display disk drives on all interfaces, not only USB – this should be self explanatory, show all detected disks, not only the ones on USB interface. Use it with caution, selecting wring disk may lead to data loss.
- Don’t check for and install grub4dos MBR – skips checks for grub4dos/fbinst MBR. Use it if you have custom prepared and formatted USB disk and you did take care of its boot ability.
- Shared BTS driver pack OEM folder – if XP/2000/2003 sources have BTS driver packs integrated, this options will set one OEM folder for all sources where the options was used, instead of each source having own OEM folder in the corresponding WINSETUP sub-directory. BTS presetup.cmd is edited accordingly.
- Prepare Windows 2000/XP/2003 to be installed on USB – prepares the transferred source so it can be installed to USB disk. That could be to the same USB disk, or another of the same type, i.e. USB stick with the Setup files and target USB stick, or USB fixed disk and target USB fixed disk. Internal hard disks and any other mass storage devices should be removed or disabled during setup process. USB drivers are set to start early, and a small service, USBbootWatcher, is installed which monitors the USB drivers settings in registry for changes. If there are such, they are reverted to the default settings as in usbbootw(atcher).cnf. Another driver takes care for USB boot when there are no any other disks and only USB removable one- WaitBT, without it Windows typically will crash with 0x0000007B stop error.
- Remove disk space requirements from txtsetup.sif – removes disk space requirements in txtsetup.sif. Useful if you are installing Windows XP/2000/2003 on disk with limited space, less than the allowed one, and you know your source would fit.
- Show debug messages during Text mode – show debug messages from WaitBT driver at start of Text mode of XP/2000/2003 Setup.
- Custom folder and menu name for 2000/XP/2003 Setup – use if you want to set custom names for the sub-directory and boot menu names for 2000/XP/2003 sources.
- Do not copy and use DPMS – do not add the DPMS feature to the USB disk. DPMS is an automated solution by Chenall and modified by Steve for adding the needed mass storage drivers into a virtual floppy, which is used by Windows 2000/XP/2003 setup to add AHCI/SATA/SCSI/RAID drivers.
- Custom drivers/F6 floppy image for 2000/XP/2003 Setup – it will be loaded as a virtual floppy before start of Text mode part of 2000/XP/2003 Setup. If DPMS does not work for you this could be another option. Please note that only the default driver as stated in txtsetup.oem could be used in setup process.
- Custom NTDETECT.COM file for 2000/XP/2003 Setup – browse to a custom NTDETECT.COM and include it in the selected 2000/XP/2003 source. That’s useful to prevent 0x0000007B stop error on some rare systems. Details could be found here.
- Custom menu names for Vista/7/8/Server Source – use if you want to set custom names for the sub-directory and boot menu names for Vista, Server 2008, Win7, Win8 and so on sources.
- Launch Q-Dir before Setup – this will add Q-Dir file explorer, which will be launched before start of NT6 (Vista and later) setup. When it’s closed, setup will start. Helpful if you need to browse the contents of the hard disks, backup and restore files etc. before running Setup.
- Add boot-critical drivers, loaded before start of Setup – adds a folder with custom drivers, loaded before start of Setup. Each INF file inside is processed and passed to DrvLoad.exe as an argument. Drivers for non-present devices are ignored. There are some limitations- if the driver .inf file requires a restart, Windows PE will ignore the request. If the driver .sys file requires a restart, the driver cannot be added by using Drvload. All loaded drivers will be propagated to the OS being installed. Use this option to add boot-critical drivers, such as USB 3.0, AHCI/SATA/RAID etc. For non boot-critical drivers, take a look at the proven and reliable Stand Alone Driverpack utility.
- Add persistence– adds a persistence ext2 partition of the selected size as third partition entry, using the selected volume name (default is CASPER-RW). You will also most likely need to append persistent to your boot menu options- for *buntu and derivatives- at the isolinux boot menu select your language, then press F6, then press ESC and add persistent to the boot string, then press Enter to boot. For other distros please consult with the documentation what kernel parameter and volume name has to be used.
There are many possible reasons, refer to this tutorial for some ideas.
Yes, since version 1.1, for Windows NT6/10 family- Vista x64 SP1 and above. Please note that until Windows 8, only 64 bit versions support boot under EFI, and the partition on the USB disk must be formatted in FAT32 in order to be recognized and booted in EFI mode.This is limitation of (U)EFI, some vendor specific implementations may support other file systems such as NTFS. More details here and here.
32 bit (U)EFI boot, supported in Windows 8 and later, is possible only on 32 bit (U)EFI hardware, such as some tables with recent Intel Atom processors. In other words, UEFI requires the firmware and operating system loader (or kernel) to be size-matched; for example, a 64-bit UEFI implementation can only load a 64-bit UEFI operating system boot loader or kernel.
There is nothing else to be modified, just use FAT32 partition, the program will do the rest. The same USB disk will also work in BIOS mode without modifications.
If your ISO file is over 4GB and can’t fit on FAT32 formatted volume, program will take care and split the large ISO in smaller chunks. Alternatively, please take look at this thread on how to use NTFS UEFI driver.
The same way the first one was added, there is even no need to restart the program, once the first one was transferred to the USB disk, select the new source and press GO again.
The program uses a copy of BOOT.WIM and few other files in WINSETUP folder. If disk space is concern, you may safely modify the original ISO image in the corresponding WINSETUP subfolder and delete BOOT.WIM in it. This way of booting helps in some rare occasions when Setup would not start from USB disk.
Program is free for personal and commercial use and can be freely redistributed as long as the licenses of the tools included are not violated and there is clear link to this page or the home page @ msfn forum if it is hosted elsewhere.
The program may not be sold or included in commercial products without written consent from its author.
This may happen on some machines if the partition on the USB disk where source files are is FAT32 formatted. Use NTFS instead if you do not need to boot Vista and later in (U)EFI mode with the same USB disk, or look at A9 on how to try (U)EFI and NTFS.
Here are some comparison tests for each file system, preparing and running XP Setup on XP and Windows 7 host OS.
Please put WinSetupFromUSB.log file and all .cab files in backup folder in a zip or 7zip archive, and upload it to datafilehost.com for example. These files are in the folder where program was extracted to.
Then leave a comment on the help page, mentioning what the problem exactly is, and a download link to the uploaded log files.
- Windows Vista/7/8/10/Server 2008-2012– delete the corresponding ISO file and directory on the USB disk\WINSETUP\. Then edit Windows bcd menus with the included BootIce or the free VisualBCD- edit \boot\bcd for BIOS boot and \efi\microsoft\boot\bcd for EFI boot
- Windows XP/2000/2003 – delete the corresponding folder in USB disk\WINSETUP\. Then edit winsetup.lst in USB disk root and remove the relevant lines (in bold):
…
title First part of Windows XP Pro Setup from partition 1
set ISOPATH=/WINSETUP/XPpSP3
…
map –unmap=0:0xff && map –rehooktitle title Second part of Windows XP Pro Setup/Boot first internal disk
savedefault
…
chainloader (hd0)+1
rootnoverify (hd0)title \n
roottitle First part of Windows XP Home Setup from partition 1
…
- Linux/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO– delete the ISO file from USB disk\ISOs. Then edit menu.lst in USB disk root, preferably with an advanced text editor such as the free Notepad++. Delete the following lines (in bold):
title My Linux Iso
map –unmap=0:0xff
…
…
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)title My Other Linux ISO
- Windows Vista/7/8/10/Server 2008-2012– edit bcd menus with the included BootIce or the free VisualBCD– edit <USB disk>\boot\bcd for BIOS boot and <USB disk>\efi\microsoft\boot\bcd for EFI boot.
- Windows XP/2000/2003 – Edit with a proper text editor such as Notepad++ <USB disk>\winsetup.lst as in the above answer 15
- Linux/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO– edit <USB disk>\menu.lst as in the above answer 15
Please refer to this in-depth explanation from the author of RMPrepUSB and easy2boot
Under UEFI, currently only Windows sources can be booted.
Program uses grub4dos for BIOS and Microsoft bootmgr for UEFI boot. Grub4dos does excellent job booting just about anything, including most Linux ISOs without any modifications. Unfortunately, UEFI is completely different architecture compared to BIOS, and grub4dos can’t and won’t support it. As of now, as far as I am aware, there is no similar boot manager such as grub4dos, which supports same features needed to boot Linux ISOs without modification and also supports UEFI. Grub2, which is the closest candidate and supports UEFI, does not yet support these grub4dos features.
Yes. As long as you use unmodified Microsoft source, it should work just fine.
i’m having problems with secure boot enabled bios, all my laptops and desktops are OEM and must have secure boot enable.
i’ve created a multi windows installation SB and it works on non OEM pc’s, but when runing on OEM the BIOs blocks me becouse on the secure boot.
is there a way to work this without disabling secure boot?
when i try to burn windows 10 iso using winsetup from usb a box say this doesn’t seem to be a valid source or either or all of / sources/boot.wim, /bootmgr are missing or sourve not supported
how i fix it ?? please help
You might have corrupted ISO.
Does 7-zip open the ISO?
Is it stock Microsoft ISO?
I have the same problem. Yes 7-Zip opens ISO, can even mount it via explorer.
Tried with creating ISO myself, and downloading ISO Windows 10 via media creation tool)
Please provide program log file, details in the FAQ above.
When I boot from the Original DVD, there is no problem installing Windows 10. When converting DVD to ISO (or use the Win10 Media Creation Tool to download ISO) and using this program to add the ISO to my USB stick, it will boot the ISO, but during setup of Windows there is an error that he cannot find a drive to install Windows. Same thing happens when I start from a Windows 7 ISO. How can this be fixed?
What’s the exact error?
i left comments on a different page, but have your upload instructions now 🙂
received the error “Could not prepare NT6 boot files” when trying to create from windows 10 media creation tool iso for x64/eng
https://www.datafilehost.com/d/df8af73d
Looks like something is preventing bcdedit from updating the bcd store.
Double check if Bitdefender is indeed stopped, check if Wundows defender is running, or any similar program. Does One Drive monitor Winsetup directory or drive D ?
Yes, Bitdefender was definitely disabled. You can see in the procmon screenshot that bcdedit and winsetupfromusb are the only processes that are accessing that folder. (filtered for D:\boot). (The BitDefender windows you see in the taskbar are the settings screen and the warning screen that ‘your system is at risk’ etc.)
OneDrive only monitors a subfolder of current user.
However, remounted drive as J: and moved .iso file off of OneDrive folder (in case it was interfering with read) to unmonitored Downloads folder. Same error though: https://www.datafilehost.com/d/060a3f09
In addition, tried running in safe mode with the same issue
Don’t think I can help further on this. Apparently bcdedit is failing to update BCD store on D and something is interfering with the process.
Hello from Ecuador my question is. how to remove isos from the usb and add new or updated or new versions of Os and PEbuilder.
Thank you.
AFAIK, you can´t remove ISOs, except by re-building the whole USB. But you can add an ISO to a previously created USB anytime.
Nonsense. You CAN remove ISO’s very easily. See “15. How to remove already added sources?” in the FAQ. You can also replace an ISO (as long as it has the identical name) by simply copying it over the existing file on the USB (assuming there is sufficient space). If it has a different name, delete the old source (See #15 in the FAQ) and add the new.
PUEDE eliminar ISO’s muy fácilmente. Consulte ’15. ¿Cómo eliminar fuentes ya agregadas?’ en las preguntas frecuentes También puede reemplazar un ISO (siempre que tenga el mismo nombre) simplemente copiándolo sobre el archivo existente en el USB (suponiendo que hay espacio suficiente). Si tiene un nombre diferente, elimine la fuente anterior (consulte 15 en las preguntas frecuentes) y agregue la nueva.
I don´t like the idea of messing up with the BCD just to delete an ISO. There should be an easier way.
Well, adding a source and booting it is more that just copying a file.
Logically, removing a source, needs to reverse what was done to add it.
If you don’t like removing the BCD entry, nothing stops you from removing the ISO and leaving the BCD entries which will be pointing nowhere. What happens if you do that with a few or more sources?
Given the various types of sources supported and the complexity adding them, I don’t have any plans for automating source removal in the program.
Besides, there is not only Windows 7/8/10 sources supported with BCD entries, but also XP likes, Linux and so on.
Oscar F. says: “I don´t like the idea of messing up with the BCD just to delete an ISO. There should be an easier way.”
It’s not that difficult, and you would have to really try to mess up the BCD. If you prefer, you can use BCDEDIT from the command line, but most people prefer the GUI format of BootIce or VisualBCD for simplicity and avoiding errors. I prefer EasyBCD, because I’m nore familiar with it.
itaushanov says: “Logically, removing a source, needs to reverse what was done to add it. If you don’t like removing the BCD entry, nothing stops you from removing the ISO and leaving the BCD entries which will be pointing nowhere. What happens if you do that with a few or more sources? Given the various types of sources supported and the complexity adding them, I don’t have any plans for automating source removal in the program.Besides, there is not only Windows 7/8/10 sources supported with BCD entries, but also XP likes, Linux and so on.”
If the sources are removed (deleted) without removing the corresponding BCD, winsetup.lst or menu.lst entries, people will forget they removed them, and complain when they select them from the menu, and they don’t load. I’m not sure what your loader program would do in that situation. Would it display an error message or would it crash?
An “automated” source removal program wouldn’t be that difficult:
1) Scan the USB and display the sources contained therein
2) Allow the user to select the source to delete via mouse click (instead of having to type in the full name, which might lead to errors).
3) If the source is “Windows Vista/7/8/10/Server 2008-2012”
a) delete the corresponding ISO file and directory on the USB disk\WINSETUP\.
b) delete the corresponding entries in \boot\bcd and \efi\microsoft\boot\bcd using BCDEDIT calls.
4) If the source is “Windows XP/2000/2003”
a) delete the corresponding folder in USB disk\WINSETUP\.
b) edit winsetup.lst in USB disk root, removing the relevant lines.
5) If the source is “Linux/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO”
a) delete the ISO file from USB disk\ISOs.
b) edit menu.lst in USB disk root, deleting the relevant lines
I may write such a program myself, as I regularly remove old W10 sources, and add the latest build. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
Yes, it´s easy to edit the USB BCD with bootIce. When I posted above I was mistaken, thinking about the system BCD.
Hello:
Can WinSetupFromUSB recognize disk over 128GB? I have a 256GB removable disk, but this tool cannot display my disk in the list. I tried format disk with bootice and RMPrepUSB, but not work. How should I do? Thank you for your help.
Open advanced options and select to display all disks. Be careful with disk selection!
Hey , first of all great product east to use and as far as i can see working properly . I just have one silly question . I put inside of my 32 gb flash windows 10 64 , windows 10 32 , win 7 64 and win 7 32 . On top of that i put Linux , Hiren , bootcd , acronis and couple more . But when i boot it from the boot menu it only shows the 4 windowses and not the rest . M’i missing something ? (apparently i have missed something but if someone can help me what exactly 🙂 )
Nah , silly me i had to turn on legacy boot from BIOS and everything worked like a charm .
hi when I was making bootable of windows 7 and windows 10 I got this message what to do? please help?
this doesn’t seem to be valid source!
Either or all of \sources\boot.wim,\bootmgr\boot, \boot\BCD are missing,or sources is not supported
retry to select anaother sources or Cancel to return to the main menu
retry cancel
Logfiles:
2018/08/29 21:57:52- Checking sizes…
2018/08/29 21:57:52- Total source size- 0 bytes
2018/08/29 21:57:52- Target space available- 28.6 GB
2018/08/29 21:57:57- Obtaining size of NT6 boot files
2018/08/29 21:57:58-
7-Zip 9.30 alpha Copyright (c) 1999-2012 Igor Pavlov 2012-10-26
Listing archive: D:\software\Windows 7 all Edition X86 & X64 Bit Activated\Windows 7 Sp1 AIO (x86x64) 11in1 es-es (USB3.0) Aug2018-=TEAM OS=-\Window 7 AIO SP1(Aug 2018).iso
—
Path = D:\software\Windows 7 all Edition X86 & X64 Bit Activated\Windows 7 Sp1 AIO (x86x64) 11in1 es-es (USB3.0) Aug2018-=TEAM OS=-\Window 7 AIO SP1(Aug 2018).iso
Type = Udf
Comment = WIn7
Cluster Size = 2048
Created = 2009-10-22 00:00:00
Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name
——————- —– ———— ———— ————————
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. boot
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 262144 262144 boot\bcd
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 3170304 3170304 boot\boot.sdi
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 1024 2048 boot\bootfix.bin
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 97280 98304 boot\bootsect.exe
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. boot\es-es
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 15872 16384 boot\es-es\bootsect.exe.mui
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 4096 4096 boot\etfsboot.com
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. boot\fonts
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 47452 49152 boot\fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 485760 487424 boot\memtest.exe
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 383786 385024 bootmgr
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. efi
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. efi\microsoft
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. efi\microsoft\boot
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 262144 262144 efi\microsoft\boot\bcd
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 440832 442368 efi\microsoft\boot\cdboot.efi
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 1474560 1474560 efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin
2009-10-22 00:00:00 D…. efi\microsoft\boot\fonts
2009-10-22 00:00:00 ….. 47452 49152 efi\microsoft\boot\fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf
——————- —– ———— ———— ————————
6692706 6703104 13 files, 7 folders
2018/08/29 21:57:58-
2018/08/29 21:57:58- Func _GetVistaKickerIsoSize returned an error: 3
That ISO file name has lots of special characters in it. Try renaming it first. Second- most likely it won’t work anyway, please read supported sources, faqs and notes next to the download.
this doesn’t seem to be valid source!
Either or all of \sources\boot.wim,\bootmgr\boot, \boot\BCD are missing,or sources is not supported
retry to select anaother sources or Cancel to return to the main menu
retry cancel
answer:
i got the problem winsetupfromusb search for install.wim file when i extracted the iso I saw that there was no install.wim file And I found That in some windows iso,install.esd is keep instead of install.wim
is there and option of .esd file detection in winsetupfromusb?
Install.esd is already included in the search, unless you are using very old version of the program.
i have the iso contain the esd file as well as the latest version of winsetupfromusb also
What folder is it in? Must be in Sources. Does Sources contain boot.wim as well?
sorry I recognized that there two boot.wim file one is bootx64.wim and bootx86.wim
Is there a issue with it? if so how can i solve it?
As mentioned earlier, such sources are not supported, there is no easy solution or workaround. Better off stick with stock, unmodified, single source ISOs and add as many as you want. Flash drives are large and cheap enough nowadays.
Is it possible first screen to Operating System page? And can i add .gfx file for this page and Windows Xp page?
Not sure what operating system page. Gfx menu can go into any of the grub4dos menus- menu.lst and winsetup.lst
“Windows Vista / 7 8 / 10 Server 2008 / 2012 based iso” section to main page?
Which page do you call “main page”? The one with black background or with teal?