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I have two ISO files for Microsoft Server 2019 and 2022 installations, officially downloaded from Microsoft MSDN. I need to create a USB bootable drive from these ISO files using Rufus.

After trying to open the ISO file in Rufus, there is an error message:

Unsupported image

"This image is either non-bootable, or it uses a boot compression method that is not supported by Rufus..."

enter image description here

  • the files were correctly downloaded, the SHA256 hashes corresponds with the hashes provided by Microsoft
  • I have another ISO for Windows 10 desktop installation, which works OK with Rufus.

Maybe there is a different ISO format of Windows Desktop and Server installations? Does anybody know, how to treat the server installation ISOs?

Note: I also tried to recover the server ISOs using USB Image Tool. This works, but the USB stick is then not bootable, USB image tool probably blindly copies the data to USB drive.

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  • Have you tried the official Media Creation Tool. If so, what were the results? If not, why not?
    – ChanganAuto
    Jan 4, 2023 at 0:14
  • @ChanganAuto - The MCT cannot be used to download Windows Server
    – Ramhound
    Jan 4, 2023 at 2:32
  • Yes, exactly. MCT is only for desktop editions.
    – ethcz
    Jan 4, 2023 at 10:52

1 Answer 1

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  1. I was able to finally recover the ISO to a USB drive using the tool ISO to USB.

enter image description here

  1. I found a reason, why Rufus refused to recover the image:
  • It turned out, that the ISO I have is not a bootable installation of MS Server OS with an SQL functionality (as I expected), but only an image of MS SQL installation, that supposes to be installed on top of an existing operating system. To be honest, Rufus is claiming that in the error message:

"This image is either non-bootable, ..."

Note: Even that I checked the "Bootable" checkbox (which I shouldn't as the ISO does not support it), the ISO was recovered OK and I was able to proceed the MS SQL installation with it.

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  • So Rufus was correct in telling you that your image was non-bootable. For the record, you don't need to use Rufus if all you want to do is extract the content of an ISO to a USB flash drive, especially as this is not what Rufus is designed for. You can either just mount the ISO in Windows (Windows 8 or later) or use a utility like 7-zip.
    – Akeo
    Jan 4, 2023 at 13:44
  • In fact, yes. But as I said, I was not aware of the fact, that the ISO is not bootable. Microsoft is not much sharp in providing information in a clear way. You are right about mounting ISO on Windows and using 7-zip, it should work for my case.
    – ethcz
    Jan 4, 2023 at 14:28

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