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How to create USB Windows 11 install media on macOS

John

This article will guide you through the process of using macOS to create a USB device for the installation of Windows 11.

When installing Windows on a Dell laptop, I found that the required drivers for enabling the network device were not available, so I needed to download a driver pack and extract this on a Windows VM. Once this was done, the drivers can be copied to the same USB device, in a new folder, e.g. “delldrivers”, ready for use.

Step 1: Browse to the Windows download page.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

Step 2: Scroll to the “Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices” section and select the Windows 11 option.

Step 3: Click the “Download Now” button. Wait for the request validation to complete.

Step 4: Select the product language.

Step 5: Click the “Confirm” button. Wait for the request validation to complete.

Step 6: Click the “64-bit Download” button. The ISO file will download to the “Downloads” folder.

Step 7: Connect an empty USB stick. Note: check that the stick is empty, as any contents will be lost.

Step 8: Open Launchpad, find and open Terminal.

Step 9: Identify the storage device.

diskutil list

Step 10:

Step 11: Format the storage device (disk2) with the FAT32 file system.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS WINDOWS11 MBR disk2

Step 12: Mount the Windows 11 ISO file.

hdiutil mount ~/Downloads/Win11_24H2_EnglishInternational_x64.iso

Step 13: Copy the installer files to the storage device. Exclude the install.wim file as it is too big for the FAT32 partition.

rsync -avh --progress \
  --exclude=/sources/install.wim \
  /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9/ \
  /Volumes/WINDOWS11

Step 14: Install Homebrew. This is required to install wimlib, which we will use to split and copy the large install.wim file.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Note: if you encounter an error (e.g. below), try removing the repo (see sudo command below) and rerunning the previous command.

==> Updating Homebrew...
fatal: ambiguous argument 'refs/remotes/origin/main': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/Homebrew

Step 15: Run the post-installation commands for Homebrew. These commands are shown at the end of the installation output. Your directory name will vary from /Users/john/, and also the shell if you are using zsh.

echo >> /Users/john/.bash_profile
echo 'eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/john/.bash_profile
eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"

Step 16: Test and update the installation.

brew doctor
brew update

Step 17: Install wimlib.

brew install wimlib

Step 18: Split and copy the large install.wim file to the storage device. Be patient, as the file is around 5 GB, this may take a short while.

wimlib-imagex split \
  /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9/sources/install.wim \
  /Volumes/WINDOWS11/sources/install.swm 3500

Step 19: Unmount the ISO image and eject the storage device.

hdiutil unmount /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9
diskutil eject /dev/disk2

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