WinDiskWriter

  WinDiskWriter — an application for macOS that gives you the power to create bootable USB drives with Microsoft Windows on your Mac.
  With this software, you have the flexibility and convenience to prepare a flash drive with the Windows version of your choice, whether you need to install Windows on another computer, run Windows on your Intel Mac, or test Windows on a virtual machine.

  WinDiskWriter offers a user-friendly graphical interface that simplifies the process and guides you through the steps.

  As WinDiskWriter is still under development, there may be some bugs or errors that need to be fixed. If you experience any issues or have any questions, please do not hesitate to create an Issue on GitHub and I will assist you as soon as possible.

 ⭐️ If you appreciate its functionality and want to support its development, you can make a donation ⭐️

Table of Contents

Features

• 📀 Creating bootable USB drive with Windows Vista through 11 (incl. Server Editions)
  _{WinDiskWriter automatically use the required writing logic for each Windows Image type.}


• 🛠 Patching Windows 11 Installer
  _{You can bypass the hardware requirements for Windows 11, such as the TPM chip and Secure Boot, by patching the installer with WinDiskWriter.
  This way, you can install Windows 11 on any EFI-capable x64 device, even if it does not meet the official specifications.}


• 🔐 Extracting EFI-compatible bootloader
  _{You can create a EFI bootable USB drive for Windows Vista or 7 by extracting the bootloader from the installation file with WinDiskWriter.
  This feature is useful if you want to install Windows Vista or 7 on a modern device that supports EFI booting.}


• 🗂 Splitting install.wim file
  _{You can split a large install.wim file into multiple .swm files to fit the FAT32 file size limit with WinDiskWriter.
  This feature is necessary if you want to use a FAT32 formatted USB drive, which is more compatible with different devices and operating systems than exFAT / NTFS}

Compatibility

🍏 macOS Support

💻 Windows Images

Planned Features

• 🚀 Legacy BIOS booting option
  _{You will be able to create bootable USB drives for Windows that can boot in Legacy BIOS mode, which is an older and simpler way of booting than UEFI.
  This feature will be useful if you want to install Windows on a device that does not support UEFI or has compatibility issues with it.}


• 📁 Individual partitions selection in WinDiskWriter
  _{You will be able to choose which partitions you want to write to your USB drive from the WinDiskWriter graphical interface, instead of writing the whole disk image.
  This feature will give you more control and flexibility over the content and size of your USB drive.}


• 🔍 Toggle to show internal drives
  _{You will be able to see and select your internal drives as well as your external drives in WinDiskWriter, by using a toggle switch.
  This feature will allow you to use WinDiskWriter with any drive connected to your Mac, but you should be careful not to overwrite your important data.}


• 🗜 Splitting install.esd (compressed system image) files for better FAT32 filesystem compatibility
  _{You will be able to split a large install.esd file into multiple .swm files to fit the FAT32 file size limit with WinDiskWriter.
  This feature will be necessary if you want to use a FAT32 formatted USB drive with a Windows image that has a compressed system image file larger than 4GB, which is common for some repacks.
  ^{!!!IMPORTANT NOTICE!!! Large .wim install images are supported. The wimlib library needs to be updated to a newer version in order to work with compressed .esd files.}}


• 🎨 UI Elements drawing issues resolution on Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9 and lower
  _{You will be able to enjoy a smooth and consistent user interface on older versions of macOS, such as Mavericks 10.9 and lower, by fixing the UI elements drawing issues that affect them.
  This feature will improve the appearance and usability of WinDiskWriter on legacy systems.}


• 💻 32-Bit CPU support for the existing fat binary (x86_64 + ARM64 + x86)
  _{You will be able to run WinDiskWriter on 32-Bit Macs by adding x86 support to the existing fat binary that already supports x86_64 and ARM64 architectures.
  This feature will extend the compatibility and accessibility of WinDiskWriter to older Mac models that have 32-Bit CPUs.
  ^{Currently, can't build an x86-32 binary by myself since I'm using an ARM64e Mac.}}


• 📝 Option to add ei.cfg to enable edition selection
  _{You will be able to add an ei.cfg file to your USB drive with WinDiskWriter, which will allow you to choose the Windows edition you want to install, regardless of the serial number of the hardware.
  This feature will be helpful if you want to
  install Windows Pro on a device that came with Windows Home, or vice versa}.


• 🌐 Option to remove the online account requirement from Windows 11 22H2+
  _{You will be able to remove the mandatory requirement for a Microsoft account on Windows 11 22H2+ with WinDiskWriter, which will let you create a local account instead.
  This feature will give you more privacy and control over your Windows 11 installation.}

Additional Information

  WinDiskWriter is written in Objective-C, a programming language that ensures high compatibility with older versions of macOS. Objective-C is an extension of the C language that adds object-oriented features and dynamic runtime. Objective-C was the primary language for developing applications for macOS and iOS until Swift was introduced in 2014.
  You can run WinDiskWriter as a self-contained binary that does not require any external dynamic libraries, making it reliable and portable. A binary file is an executable file that contains machine code that can be directly run by the computer. A self-contained binary file includes all the code and resources that are needed for the program to function, without depending on any other files or libraries.
  Despite supporting multiple architectures (x86_64 and ARM64), WinDiskWriter has a small application size, thanks to the efficiency of Objective-C, which is supported by all versions of Mac OS X.

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Authors

• @TechUnRestricted

Used Libraries

• wimlib _{^{(GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3)}}