Whether you’re building a new Windows PC or just want to make a completely fresh start on your existing computer you will need to perform a clean install of Windows 11, booting off of an install disk and writing the new OS to your storage drive. In order to create a bootable install disk, you will need to get a Windows 11 ISO file that you can write to a USB Flash drive or use as a standalone file if you are installing Windows in a virtual machine.

Whether you have a valid product key or not (see how to get Windows 11 for free or cheap), downloading a Windows 11 ISO never costs anything and there are three main ways to do so. First, you can download a Windows 11 ISO directly from Microsoft or use the company’s Media Creation Tool to download the software and write it directly to a USB Flash Drive.

Second, you could use tools from a site called UUP dump to download the files from Microsoft’s update servers and build a custom ISO that’s fully up-to-date with an insider build that’s even newer than release build. Finally, you can use Aveyo’s open-source Universal MediaCreationTool to create an ISO that bypasses WIndows 11’s TPM requirement.

How to Get a Windows 11 ISO

Before you can begin your install, you need to get a Windows 11 ISO file. If you’ve installed Windows 10 or even a build of Linux before, you’ll know that ISO files are disk images you can use to create a bootable USB Flash drive, write to an optical disc or boot a virtual machine off of. 

Downloading a Windows 11 ISO From Microsoft

The easiest way to get a Windows 11 ISO is by downloading one directly from Microsoft.

1. Navigate to the Windows 11 ISO page(opens in new tab).

2. Select Windows 11 from the menu under “Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO).” If you want to go straight to creating a USB Flash drive, you can download the Windows 11 Installation Media tool from here. See the section below for step-by-step details on how to do that.

3. Click Download.

4. Select your language and click confirm

5. Click the download button that appears.

The ISO file will now download to your computer.

Create a Windows 11 Install Disk with Media Creation Tool

If you don’t want to keep a copy of the latest Windows 11 ISO on your storage drive and just want to have a bootable USB Windows 11 install disk, the easiest way is to use Microsoft’s media creation tool. Here’s how.

1. Connect a USB Flash drive to your PC. It must be at least 8GB and have no data on it you want to keep. This process will overwrite the whole disk.

2. Navigate to Microsoft’s Windows 11 Download page(opens in new tab).

3. Click Download Now under Create Windows 11 Installation Media to download the Media Creation Tool.

4. Launch the Media Creation Tool.

5. Click Accept when shown the license agreement.

6. Select your language and Edition and click Next. The default choices will probably be correct.

7. Select USB flash drive and click Next. You can also select ISO file here and create an ISO file instead if you don’t have a drive ready.

8. Select your USB Flash drive (if there’s more than one choice) and click Next.

You will now have to wait several minutes while your computer downloads Windows 11.

9. Click Finish when it says your USB Flash drive is ready.