[HOW TO] Create a Bootable USB Stick using WinReducer 8 or 8.1

Available in v0.78 (beta) not yet available ...
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* TAKE ALL NEEDED PRECAUTIONS BECAUSE THIS IS A REALLY EXPERIMENTAL TOOL *
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TUTORIAL STEPS :

1) It's better to disconnect all your USB devices

2) Go to "Save in Wim or in an ISO file" tab and Hit "Advanced Options" :


3) You will see all Advanced Options :


3) A) Hit "Create Bootable USB Stick"

This will auto-detect all your HDD and USB devices. If you do not have USB Stick connected, it will inform you by a message, so you need to connect your USB device and hit "Refresh" button. Your USB device will appear in the list.

3) B) Identify your USB device in the list

In the screenshot, it's "Disque 4" (french language  ). You could use the size ("Taille") to correctly identify it.

3) C) Choose your USB device number

Choose number "4" for "Disque 4"

3) D) You could choose a different name

You could change the label USB Stick name. You are limited to 20 characters.

3) D) Hit "Do it now !" button

You need to create your Bootable USB Stick here, otherwise it won't be available during the creating ISO process.

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IMPORTANT INFORMATIONS :

Each time you hit "Do it Now!" button, this message will appear to inform you that :

1. You need to know exactly what you are doing with expert skills
   
2. Your device will be entirely formatted
   
3. If you choose a wrong device (USB or not) you may loose all your personal documents, so be really careful !
   
4. You being warned about the risk and you are using under your entire responsibility
   

Revision 2.00 (Updated on 26.07.2013)

winterstorm2050

For one, this looks completely different from what I see in the winreducer program. Is this the complete process? This seems to only "format" a bootable usb drive... is there something else that I am missing? Does the software not actually copy the appropriate files to the usb drive?

clayjorgensen wrote:

For one, this looks completely different from what I see in the winreducer program. Is this the complete process? This seems to only "format" a bootable usb drive... is there something else that I am missing? Does the software not actually copy the appropriate files to the usb drive?

the tutorial is more than 1 year old.
winterstorm made a new GUI etc.

you can format with winreducer your USB drive to make it bootable.

next step is copy your files i.e from "WinReducer70\WORK\EXTRACT\ExtractedByWinReducer" to the root of your USB drive.

finished

You don't have to create anything bootable, just format a usb drive in fat32 and copy the workfolder files to it..... it works just fine..

Hello,

Yes, but not exactly true, you also need to activate your key as bootable !

Winterstorm, please try it once, i've installed my pc using my simple way many times now.

Just format a usb drive FAT32 (no external tool needed) and for windows 8.1 x64 you only have to make sure the wim (the biggest file in the folder) is under 4GB to fit on a FAT32 formatted drive (if it's bigger convert it simply to ESD) and copy the files to the usb drive and it will be bootable. For windows 7 SP1 x64 you have to use the UEFI bootable option in winreducer (or do it manually after saving without winreducer UEFI compatibillity when you save your project in a wim file). If you have a wim <4GB (if not convert the wim to swm files) copy all files to the FAT32 formatted usb drive and it also will be bootable and UEFI capable.

You can simply verify if this works by booting the pc with the UEFI capable usb drive and select the drive with UEFI... If you get the drive setup screen and the partition you select doesn't say "installing windows on this partition isn't possible....." (you probably know what i mean) it's installable...