(Starting a new thread, since the previous one has grown quite big and this is a major release - Yet, I'm not going to shy away from shamelessly copy/pasting the blurb I wrote for the beta ).
It is my great pleasure to announce the release of Rufus 2.0!
The Changelog for this version is as follows:
- Major UI improvements (improved font, new info field, no separate progress dialog, etc.)
- Add support for Windows To Go (when Rufus is running on Windows 8 or later)
- Add support for Grub4DOS and GRUB 2 based images (e.g. FreeNAS)
- Add portable application support, through a 'rufus.ini' file
- Add native decompression support for DD images (.Z, .gz, .lzma, .bz2 and .xz)
- Add seamless UEFI boot of NTFS partitions, for Windows ISOs with large files (>4GB)
- Add support for Windows multipart install.swm
- Add support for non Microsoft VHD drivers
- Add Norwegian translation, courtesy of JED
- Fix a crash on image selection when no device is present
- Fix broken VHD support for non-English version of Windows
- Fix write error for DD images that are not a multiple of the sector size
- Fix broken Unicode support
- Update Syslinux to 6.0.3
- Other improvements and fixes
The points of interest that I'd like to stress out, in no particular order, is that Rufus should now look much nicer for eastern Asian languages (as long as you're not using XP... but you really shouldn't), the slightly annoying separate progress dialog is now gone, FreeNAS is now supported (through GRUB 2), seamless support for NTFS under EFI is provided for Windows images (convenient if you have a >4GB install.wim for instance) and the new info field should make the UI a bit more helpful for newcomers.
I'll also take a moment to explain how the portable feature works:
- If you have a rufus.ini in the directory where you are launching Rufus from (even if it's a blank one), Rufus will use that, instead of the registry, to store its settings.
- Also, if any part of the executable name contains a 'p' (for portable), Rufus will create a rufus.ini if one doesn't already exists, and use that one. This means that if you call the executable rufus_2.0p.exe, Rufus will automagically activate its portable mode.
Oh, there is now a convenient link to such a portable download on the homepage - isn't that nice? - The format of rufus.ini is documented here.
Note however that portability does not equate unmodified registry, as Rufus will still apply LGP policies to temporarily avoid the annoying "Hey, I detected a new drive - do you want to format it?" messages that Windows would otherwise pop out. If you are that paranoid about registry changes, you can however use portable mode and enable DisableLGP, in which case registry changes originating from Rufus should be removed. You will of course get the annoying popups from Windows then.
With regards to Windows To Go, all I want to say is: You need to be running Rufus on Windows 8 or later for the 'Windows To Go' feature to be available to you, provided you use a compatible image (which include some Windows 7 ISOs). If you run Rufus on Windows 7 or earlier, you'll have to look elsewhere for Windows to Go support for the time being. The reason is detailed here. The Rufus usage notes also provide a bit more details with regards to To Go support in Rufus.
Also, while some people have reported success with Windows 10 (at least for the x86_32 version), at this stage, you should really expect Windows To Go support NOT to work for Windows 10, as all the tests I have conducted with 10 x64 have ended with an infinite boot, even when using the official Microsoft To Go tool from a Windows 10 Enterprise Preview 2 physical installation.
Thus, as far as I am concerned, ANYTHING that is preview, such as Windows 10, is unsupported which means you're on your own with Windows 10 until the formal release...
Finally, if you want to understand why this new version of Rufus is a bit plumper than the last one, have a look here.
Enjoy!