Rufus, a popular third-party app for creating bootable media, has received yet another wonderful update. Version 3.20 BETA introduces the option to create a local offline account and copy regional settings from the current Windows installation. The only caveat here is that the account creation feature can only make a user with the same name as the current one and a blank password. After the first reboot, Windows will prompt you to change the password.
Here is the rest of the changelog containing other bugfixes and improvements:
- Enable applicable Windows User Experience options for Windows 10
- Make Windows User Experience options persist between sessions
- Add automatic local account creation and regional options duplication. This is limited to creating an account with the same name as the current user and with an empty password that the user will be prompted to change after first reboot.
- Add a workaround for ISOs that have a syslinux symbolic link to /isolinux/ (Knoppix).
- Revert to offline insertion of registry keys for the TPM/SB/RAM bypass where possible.
- Remove storage bypass, since this is a bogus bypass that doesn't do anything.
- Improve BIOS compatibility when displaying the "UEFI boot only" alert message.
- Fix Windows User Experience dialog appearing twice for Windows To Go.
- Fix Windows User Experience options not being applied for ARM64.
- Fix Microsoft Account bypass not being applied unless TPM/SB/RAM bypass is selected.
Rufus recently became a go-to utility for those who want to use Windows 11 and not deal with its weird policies and rules. The app can make a Windows 11 install media that bypasses TPM and Secure Boot requirements and automatically rejects data collection prompts. Version 3.19, now available in the stable channel, introduced a much-needed option to bypass the Microsoft Account requirement during the initial setup.
You can download Rufus 3.20 BETA from its repository on GitHub. The stable release is available on the official website.
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