Bootable USB – Option 1

Rufus is a small free utility that allows you to create bootable USB drives. It’s very lightweight and doesn’t even require installation. Versions 2.15 (portable) can be downloaded from here, or check for the latest version of developer’s website.

Bootable USB – Option 2

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool works great if you need to create bootable Windows USB flash drive from an .ISO file. You can download this tool from here or directly from Microsoft.

Bootable USB – Option 3

Universal USB Installer by Pendrivelinux is mostly used to create bootable Linux flash drives, but it also has an option for Windows installation USB drives. Version 1.9.4.9 can be downloaded from here, or just go directly to developer’s website.

Universal USB Installer allows to format flash drives in FAT32 (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool always uses NTFS). This can be useful working with certain systems.

Bootable USB – Option 4

WinToFlash can be used to create bootable Windows flash drives from a CD/DVD disk. you can download WinToFlash v0.6.0011 from here, or check for the latest version here.

Bootable CD/DVD

If you need to create bootable CD or DVD drive from non-bootable ISO or folder structure, you can use ImgBurn from www.imgburn.com. There is a good tutorial on how to create bootable ISO with ImgBurn on www.intowindows.com.

Be careful installing ImgBurn as if you leave default settings it will install some crap-ware. This can be avoided deselecting few checkboxes during setup.