Once done, restart your PC with the DVD or USB flash drive inserted – you should see a prompt to press any key to boot from CD or DVD (if this doesn’t appear, look for an option to select your boot device just after switching your PC on – typically a key like F11. Accept the license agreement, choose your language and edition, then select whether to create bootable USB or flash drive media. When creating new media, you’ll find it works in exactly the same way as the Windows 10 Media Creation tool. The tool can also be used to perform in-place reinstalls of existing Windows 11 installs (but you can’t use it to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 – you’ll need to do that through the installation media you create, or by downloading the Windows 11 Installation Assistant). The latter is our preferred choice because it boots (and therefore loads Windows) much quicker.

The Media Creation tool is the simplest way to create Windows 11 install media – it can create a bootable DVD using a blank disc and your DVD writer, or you can create a bootable USB flash drive from a spare 8GB USB flash drive.

Media creation tool for windows 11