New Rufus 4.6 Features: Windows 11 24H2 Unsupported PC Bypass and ReactOS Boot Fix

At the beginning of this month, Microsoft rolled out an update for its Media Creation Tool in conjunction with the latest Patch Tuesday fixes, addressing various issues. This tool allows users to either conduct a clean installation or execute an in-place upgrade.

However, as it is an official Microsoft tool, it does not provide a means to bypass the system requirements for unsupported hardware. This is where third-party applications like Rufus become beneficial. As promised by its developer, Rufus now includes an in-place upgrade workaround within version 4.6 beta, allowing users to tweak the Registry.

If you have been waiting for a stable release, the finalized Rufus 4.6 version is now available, complete with the aforementioned bypass feature. This release incorporates enhancements and fixes from the beta version while also introducing a noteworthy addition.

According to the release notes, this version boasts better support for creating boot media for ReactOS. Previous versions had encountered booting issues, which have been resolved by switching to FreeLdr.SYS.

For those unfamiliar, ReactOS is commonly termed “Open source Windows,”and FreeLoader (FreeLdr) functions as its default bootloader.

The release notes for Rufus version 4.6 final are outlined below:

Introduced a new setup.exe wrapper to circumvent Windows 11 24H2 in-place upgrade restrictions (#2568)

Added TimeZone replication to regional options (#2499)

Set local account passwords to never expire by default

Resolved an issue when writing compressed VHD images (#2468)

Fixed a problem when launching Rufus via PowerShell (#2556)

Enhanced revoked UEFI bootloaders verification to incorporate Linux SBAT, Windows SVN, and cert DBX

Improved ReactOS boot media support (#2589)

In addition, a new alternative utility similar to Rufus has just been launched called “Flyby11,”which also claims to facilitate bypassing the Windows 11 (24H2) system requirements with minimal effort.

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