WinDiskWriter — creating a bootable USB with Windows on macOS
Tags: software, macos, windows, bootable
Published: 2023-09-16 16:41:16

![WinDiskWriter Application Icon](https://i.postimg.cc/L83hSvLy/Win-Disk-Writer-Long-Blank-Background.png)
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<center><h1>WinDiskWriter</h1></center>

         For macOS users, making a flash drive with Windows has been a challenging task.
         However, there is a simple solution that enables them to easily create a flash drive with Windows.

![WinDiskWriter Main Window](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qqy309qf0dfg6xylm2mc.jpg)

         Introducing the **[WinDiskWriter](https://github.com/TechUnRestricted/windiskwriter)** — an application for macOS that will allow you to **write a bootable .iso file on your USB flash drive**.

### Supported Microsoft Windows Images 💿
- Windows 11
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista

### Features ⭐️
- Writing a bootable .iso file on USB drive
- **Patching Windows 11 image** in order to ignore the hardware requirements set by Microsoft
    - TPM 2.0
    - Secure Boot
    - Minimum Storage Capacity
    - Minimum RAM Capacity
    - _and others..._
- Installing an **EFI-capable boot** file for _Windows 7_ and _Vista_
- **Splitting large install.wim** file in order to fit onto _FAT32 filesystem_
- Advanced progress tracking
- **Wide compatibility** starting from _Mac OS X 10.6_ and ending with the latest version of macOS at the time of writing — _14.0 Sonoma_

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## What was the problem initially? 🤔
         Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft has simplified the process of preparing USB devices for booting in UEFI mode with the installer of their operating system.
         For a long time, everything was good and convenient — macOS users only had to format their USB flash drive in FAT32 and transfer data from the .iso image to it.
![Can't copy an install.wim file due to the FAT32 limitations](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/xp27taqb48ap36be93tp.png)
         However, starting with a certain version of Windows 10, one of the _installation files has become larger than 4GB_, which is simply incompatible with the FAT32 file system, which is used to boot in UEFI mode.
![Windows 11 hardware requirements](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ekahs2z61cexvok8249y.jpg)
         A challenge that arose with Windows 11 was the hardware requirement imposed by Microsoft, which included a **TPM 2.0 chip**, **enabled Secure Boot** and some other things such as installed RAM.


## And here is the solution! 😉
         I have developed software that solves the problem of writing installation flash drives on macOS.

![WinDiskWrite GitHub Page](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1x6vud2064wqpl9d03jw.png)
        [**WinDiskWriter**](https://github.com/TechUnRestricted/windiskwriter) works with 64-bit Windows images, which are compatible with the EFI standard.
### All you need is:
- macOS 10.6+
- USB drive
- Windows.iso (or directory with extracted content)

## From this point on, everything should be fairly clear, right? 🤔
Yeah, I think so. Anyways...

1. **Download the latest [release](https://github.com/TechUnRestricted/windiskwriter/releases) of WinDiskWriter**
![WinDiskWriter GitHub Release Page](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/m8e1njm2fq42z010v2t4.png)
2. **Run WinDiskWriter**
![WinDiskWriter Main Window](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bbpqf090eqsmiop9f0o0.png)
3. **Configure**
    1. Choose your Windows.iso
    2. Select your target USB device
    3. Switch the "Patch installer requirements" toggle in order to bypass Windows 11 hardware requirements
    4. Click on "Start"
4. **Hooray? Yes, if everything went well and the program notified you about it**
![WinDiskWriter Write Success](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/sdezh9p96oc15y8yjb8y.png)

## So, what's next? 😳
**That's it 👍.**
        Safely remove the USB device and **boot** **in** **UEFI mode** on your PC.
        The booting and installation of Windows should be successful if there were no problems during the writing of the flash drive.
        In any case, if something has gone wrong, be sure to let me know about it in [Issues](https://github.com/TechUnRestricted/windiskwriter/issues).