Rufus gets big update with silent Windows 11 installation, new bloat removal tools and more

Rufus 4.14 Beta delivers some useful features, like the ability to turn off Copilot, remove stock apps, install Windows 11 silently, and more.

An image showing Rufus creating Windows 11 install USB

There is no shortage of apps that let you create a bootable USB drive to install Windows 11 on a supported or unsupported computer. Rufus is one of the most popular tools out there, and its latest update, 4.14 Beta, is making the app even more attractive to regular users and enthusiasts, especially those who want a little bit more freedom.

Rufus 4.14 Beta is now available for download from GitHub. Today's update delivers several new features and improvements, particularly for Windows users. Now, when you create a bootable Windows 11 media, you can let Rufus disable Teams, Outlook, Copilot, and other "nuisances." These add to existing features, such as removing hardware requirements, turning off BitLocker, creating a local profile, and more.

Next, Rufus 4.14 Beta now supports silent installation. This allows you to install Windows in "unattended" mode. The created media will detect the first disk and install Windows 11 for you without a single prompt. There are also fixes for Windows to Go, better error reporting, new tooltips for all dialogs, improved Bazzite support, and more. Here is the rest of the changelog:

Add an option to copy SkuSiPolicy.p7b to the ESP on installation (please refer to KB5042562 for more info)
Add tooltips for all the dialog options
Add limited support for El-Torito UEFI image extraction (Mostly for Dell BIOS update ISOs)
Improve error report when the user tries to use an image that resides on the target drive
Improve the UEFI:NTFS partition label to make the install media more explicit during Windows Setup disk partitioning
Improve support for Bazzite and other Fedora derivatives that don't follow EFI conventions
Improve detection and exclusion of the new Bitdefender hidden VHDs
Fix potential errors during creation of Windows To Go media, due to the use of new versions of bcdboot
Fix errors with local accounts that start or end with whitespaces

You can download Rufus 4.14 Beta from its official GitHub repository here. If you do not want to deal with third-party apps and do not mind Windows 11 in its vanilla form, you can download the Media Creation Tool app, which Microsoft recently updated to include the latest Windows 11 builds.