[2022] How to Create Windows 10 Bootable USB on Mac Ventura
macOS Ventura is now in public beta and a lot of people want to know how to create a Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac Ventura. This could be a great way to repair your Windows 10 PC or reinstall Windows 10 on it if you only got a Mac.
The truth is that creating a bootable Windows 10 USB on macOS 13 Ventura is a bit tricky and is not at all as easy as on a PC. Boot Camp Assistant no longer supports this feature and the Terminal app can’t split install.wim in the Windows 10 ISO, which need extra effort to get it done.
To make things easier, we have listed 4 different methods to create a Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac Ventura. Each of these methods have their own pros and cons, depending on the situation that suits you best, you can choose the respective method and follow the steps to create the bootable USB.
First thing first: Download Windows 10 ISO
For any of the following methods to work, you would need to have the Windows 10 ISO image file. You can follow the steps given below to download it from the Microsoft website:
Step 1: Open a web browser on your Mac and paste the following link into the address bar:
https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10ISO
Step 2: Select the Edition from the dropdown and click on Confirm.
Step 3: Select the Language from the next dropdown and click Confirm.
Step 4: Now you’ll see 2 buttons for downloading 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 10 ISO image file. Unless you have a very old PC, you’ll need the 64-bit ISO. Click on the respective button to download the same.
1. Rufus in Parallels Desktop
Rufus is the most popular software to create bootable USB on a Windows PC. Unfortunate, it is only available for Windows OS.
However, if you already had a virtual machine set up on your Mac, then this is the perfect way to create Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac. If not, you need a virtual machine management app called Parallels Desktop.
Once installed, this virtual machine can be used like any other regular Windows PC. Here’s how you can use the Parallels Desktop to create a bootable Windows 10 USB on your Mac:
Step 1: Launch Parallels Desktop app on your Mac and follow the prompt to create a Windows 10 virtual machine. Make sure you have downloaded the ISO file in advance.
Step 2: Install a tool called Rufus on your Windows 10 virtual machine (https://rufus.ie/) and fire up the utility.
Step 3: Insert the blank USB drive in your Mac. Then select it from the dropdown Device on Rufus.
Step 4: Next, select the option Disk or ISO image from the Boot selection dropdown, then click on SELECT and choose the Windows 10 ISO image file that you downloaded earlier.
Step 5: Now select GPT partition scheme for UEFI from the Partition scheme dropdown.
Step 6: Finally, click START to begin the process of creating the Windows 10 bootable USB. Once done, you can close Rufus and Parallels Desktop.
2. UUByte ISO Editor (Mac Edition)
This is probably the easiest way to create a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive on your Mac. UUByte ISO Editor is a native app on Mac and no extra step is required in order to make it working. You don’t need to type any commands, just point-and-click with your mouse and you are good to go. Most importantly, it is working nicely on latest macOS Ventura and fully compatible with Apple M1 & M2 Mac.
Here’s how to use the UUByte ISO Editor to create Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac Ventura:
Step 1: Download and install the UUByte ISO Editor on your Mac.
Download link for Mac: https://www.uubyte.com/download/uubyte-iso-editor.dmg
Step 2: Launch the UUByte ISO Editor, then insert the blank USB flash drive in your Mac.
Step 3: Click on the Burn button on the ISO Editor window.
Step 4: On the next window, select the Windows 10 ISO file that you had downloaded earlier by clicking on the Browse button.
Step 5: Choose the Create a bootable USB option, select the USB flash drive, and finally click on Burn.
That’s it. Your bootable Windows 10 USB would be ready in a few minutes.
3. Terminal with Wimlib (Command Line)
Terminal is the stock command line utility in your Mac and it can be used to create the bootable USB flash drive from various ISO, including Windows 10.
However, this process can be very challenging since you need to type in a lot of cryptic commands. And you have to split the large install.wim manually in order to let it sit well on a FAT32 partition. This will bring a couple of additional steps for the task.
Here are the steps to create Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac Ventura using Terminal utility.
Step 1: Insert the blank USB flash drive and open the Terminal by searching for it from Spotlight.
Step 2: Type the following command in the Terminal to know your USB drive. Your USB drive will be identified like /dev/disk5. Note, the number in the end might change.
diskutil list
Step 3: Now you need to format the USB drive with GPT partition table under MS-DOS FAT32 file system. WIN10USB is the volume name of this USB drive. For that, you can type the below command in your Terminal:
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS “WIN10USB” GPT /dev/disk5
Step 4: Once done, use the following command to mount Windows 10 ISO as a virtual volume on your Mac so that its content can be copied into the USB drive. Remember to change the drive location to the folder where the ISO file is stored on your Mac. In our example, Windows 10 ISO is saved in the Downloads folder.
hdiutil mount ~/Downloads/Win10_1904_English_x64.iso
Step 5: Now you will copy all the files from the ISO image except for the install.wim file. It is too large for the FAT32 file system; we will split it and copy to USB later. CCCOMA_X64_EN-US _DV9 is the mounted volume nam e of Windows 10 ISO. The copy command is:
rsync -vha — exclude=sources/install.wim /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64_EN-US _DV9/* /Volumes/WIN10
Step 6: Now you will install Homebrew in case it is not already installed on your Mac. You can find the detailed instructions on its Homebrew welcome page.
Step 7: Once Homebrew is installed, you need to use it to install the utility called wimlib. This will be used to handle the install.wim file. To install wimlib, you need to use the below command:
brew install wimlib
Step 8: Now we will use wimlib library to split the install.wim file into two small pieces (less than 4GB) and then copy it into the USB drive using the command given below:
wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64_EN-US_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/WIN10USB/sources/install.swm 2700
Step 9: Once done, you can eject the USB flash drive from your Mac. It is now ready and can be used as a bootable USB to install Windows 10 on any PC.
4. BootCamp (Deprecated on Ventura)
The built-in BootCamp utility can be used to create a bootable USB from Windows ISO. It was the most recommended app in the past for making Windows 10 bootable USB on Mac.
But now, it is not the first choice because Bootcamp app does not work on Apple Silicon Mac. The new Macs are almost powered by Apple M1 or M2 chip. Secondly, creating bootable USB function is no longer available since macOS Big Sur. So it is only the proper solution for old Intel Macs.
Now, it is only capable of installing Windows on Intel Mac.
Want to know how to use Bootcamp app to create Windows 10 USB on Mac?Check out the steps.
Step 1: Insert the blank USB flash drive in your Mac.
Step 2: Open the BootCamp utility. You’ll find it under Finder, Applications, and then Utilities. You can also use Spotlight to open BootCamp.
Step 3: Select the 2 options including “Create a Windows 10 or later install disk”, “Download the latest Windows support software from Apple”, and uncheck the option “Install Windows 10 or later version”. Finally, click on Continue.
Step 4: Now choose the Windows 10 ISO image file that you had downloaded earlier. Once done, click on the Continue button.
Step 5: Select the blank USB flash drive and click Continue. This will create the bootable USB drive for Windows 10. Once done, you can click on Quit to exit the BootCamp application.
Among all the methods discussed, UUByte ISO Editor is the easiest tool available for creating a Windows 10 bootable USB. This tool has an intuitive UI which makes is simple to use, and there are no issues with the larger install.wim file since the tool handles it all by itself. Other than that, if you have Parallels Desktop installed on your Mac, you can use that too along with Rufus.
