Windows Media Creation Tool GPT or MBR

When I make a Windows installation thumb drive, I download the ISO with the Media Creation Tool, and then I use Rufus.

In Rufus I need to choose if I want the thumb drive to be MBR or GPT.

But if I choose the USB option in the Media Creations Tool, there is no option for MBR or GPT.

Also, if I buy a Windows thumb drive or DVD from Microsoft, is it MBR or GPT?

I do not think latest windows just uses mbr anymore. Mostly for backwards compatibility/

A little reading material… to help you.

The widespread MBR partitioning scheme, dating from the early 1980s, imposed limitations that affect the use of modern hardware. One of the main limitations is the usage of 32 bits for storing block addresses and quantity information. For hard disks with 512-byte sectors, the MBR partition table entries allow up to a maximum of 2 [TiB]

So the answer is… Depends on the OS.

Use GPT for hardware around 2014 and newer, MBR can be used for any year of hardware but will have limitations as @thevillageidiot has noted.


For the USB, I would assume GPT as it is likely intended to be used with UEFI based boards today. The DVD should support both, I can’t explain why as I do not have the knowledge in this subject area to explain it to you.

Welcome to the community @manualnellis. If you look at the top right corner of a post you can see it’s age, and we have a 6 month necro rule unless the post adds something meaningful to the thread. Given that this was almost a year ago, I think OP probably got their bootable USB figured out. I’m going to close this now, but if you have questions you can pm me with anything.

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