Rufus alternate Ventoy improves upon one of Windows 11's system requirements

New Ventoy update improves Secure Boot compatibility, fixes boot issues, adds new OS support, and more.

Recently, Microsoft announced that it is updating the requirement for Windows KMS activation by making a TPM feature mandatory. As you are probably aware of, TPM is one of the system requirements for Windows 11 as well, though some of the minimum hardware Microsoft recommends is definitely not enough, as the tech giant itself accidentally proved recently.

Speaking of Windows 11's requirements, Secure Boot is also one of them, and although it is not enforced like the others since you can still run Windows 11 even with Secure Boot disabled, a Secure Boot-capable device is definitely compulsory.

Over the last several months, Microsoft has made it clear that updated Secure Boot keys are mandatory for all Windows 11/10 systems since the previous ones are expiring. It has also been releasing useful resources to make it easier.

As such, with a previous update, Ventoy added the necessary compatibility fixes such that users do not run into any related issues. For those unfamiliar, Ventoy is an open-source utility that lets users create a bootable USB drive once and then simply copy ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD, or EFI files onto it without repeatedly formatting the drive. It supports both legacy BIOS and UEFI boot modes, Secure Boot, and a wide range of operating systems, making it one of the most versatile tools in the category.

It is essentially a third-party app like Rufus and is an alternative to Microsoft's own Media Creation Tool (got updated recently).

Earlier today, Ventoy published a new update which again has fixes for Secure Boot among other improvements. And although it has not been defined what exactly the upgrade is about, the release notes mention that there is "optimization for [the] Secure Boot process."

While we are not totally sure, it could have to do with the recent patching of a Secure Boot-related flaw that was completely overlooked for over 10 years. The issue was with vulnerable shims.

If you are wondering about the connection, Ventoy relies on shim, a Microsoft-signed UEFI bootloader, to start on systems with Secure Boot enabled. Because shim is already trusted by firmware, it can launch Ventoy and then use MOK (Machine Owner Key) enrollment to let the user trust Ventoy's own key. After this one-time setup, Ventoy can boot unsigned operating system images while Secure Boot remains enabled. You can read the linked article above to better understand it.

The changelog for the new Ventoy 1.1.17 release is given below:

• Optimization for Secure Boot process.

• Fix the boot issue for some UOS release.

• Add support for some EulerOS release.

• Fix the disk_write logic error

• Add log for live injection process.

• Add support for Athena OS

• Fix the boot issue for latest GhostBSD

• Fix the PATH broken in Ventoy2Disk.sh

• Fix fdisk detection on BusyBox systems

• Fix the issue that proxmox-ve can not boot after install in grub2 mode.

• Languages update.

   

To download the update, head over to this page on Ventoy's official GitHub repo or Neowin's software stories page.

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Posted Saturday 25 July 2026 at 7:27 am AEST (my time).

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