Build 19043.928 out to Beta & Release Channel + ISO for 19043.928

Johnny, 

He said it was formatted as GPT that is why you cannot make it active.

Anyway, I just tried making a GPT NTFS Installation media, and it is not recognized as bootable on the UEFI only machine, I'll give it a try on the older XPS 8700 that still takes NTFS, but I never tried before to boot from GPT NTFS....

I'll let you know in a minute :-)

There is nothing in the FAT32 partition.  I just created another one.  When I set it in the Boot Device menu, I was given both partitions as a choice.  If I chose the FAT32 partition, nothing happened but if I selected the NTFS partition it booted to the install.

I am wondering now if the FAT32 partition is still necessary but it does work with it on the drive.  I suppose removing the FAT32 partition will be my next test.. ;)

Bottom line, is this a legacy bios or UEFI? If UEFI, you have to have FAT32.

I have never tried to create a FAT32 NTFS combo flash card. Perhaps this is why it can't be made active. I understand rufus uses some trick to pull this off to get around the 4G limit. Then again, using rufus, one still has to create 2 flash cards, one for legacy, another for UEFI.

Using FAT32 like MS does, you only require 1 flash card that can handle both legacy and UEFI bios. Yes NTFS flash cards work fine for legacy systems only.

I have several FAT32 cards for this. When a new version comes out, only have to quick format and copy new files over, it remains bootable.

There also is another option rather than converting wim to esd, as Suat once pointed out, you can split the wim file to work on FAT32 as well.

I use a script to convert wim to esd. To use dism alone, you have to extract each individual version in the wim file. eg. Home, Pro and whatever else. Way too much work.

Regards,

@Saltgrass. 

Just creating a GPT NTFS media on USB now.

Will see where it can boot and where it cannot, stay tuned...

The Idea behind a FAT32 Installation media is that it is compatible with Both Legacy BIOS or UEFI machines that require FAT32.

That is the reason why Media Creation Tool creates it on MBR FAT32 devices with the Active partition.

I just tried it on an older (4 years) Dell laptop and it doesn't appear to recognize the USB drive as bootable.  I would expected that on the Z490 and was surprised when it worked..

Maybe it is only the newer machines that can do it..

I think it is the other way around, older machines still can have both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes selectable, those are the ones that can boot from NTFS regardless of the mode they are set.

The machines that are UEFI only can only boot from FAT32.

I just tried it on an older (4 years) Dell laptop and it doesn't appear to recognize the USB drive as bootable.  I would expected that on the Z490 and was surprised when it worked..

Maybe it is only the newer machines that can do it..