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Canonical question for Windows 10 bootable media for installation

To this date, has only canonical post for Windows 7 that dates back to 2009. The answers are mostly "use this tool and it works" that are not compatible with Windows 10.

I have located the most relevant question for Windows 10, but not really a canonical post. That only covers UEFI (what about BIOS? machine compatibility?) and the answers are very, very unsatisfying. The question for Windows 10 however, has made clear that:

Please note:

  • WinUSB doesn't work with Windows 10.
  • UNetbootin doesn't work either.
  • dd method didn't work as well.

I found another relevant post for Windows 10 has received an answer that noted some information regarding the compatibility of tool and system:

Two important points:

1: The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool is not compatible with USB 3.0. To create a USB stick that is compatible with USB 3.0 using the native boot experience of the Windows 10 Technical Preview media (or Windows 8/Windows 8.1), use DiskPart to format the USB stick and set the partition to active, then copy all of the files from inside the ISO to the USB stick.

2: UEFI (CSM disabled) requires the USB stick to be formatted FAT32. If your stick is formatted NTFS, it would explain the behavior you have described.

Besides the two quoted links for Windows 10 (and limited to UEFI setup), other relevant posts are scattered as questions with trivial titles on Super User (SU). The recent post on SU (found via this meta post) exactly reflect the need for a new canonical post for Windows 10.

Following information should be included in the new canonical post:

  • the requirements to create bootable media
  • the instructions to create bootable media for BIOS only
  • the instructions to create bootable media for UEFI only
  • the compatibility of bootable media with 32-bit/64-bit machines

Here, the "bootable media" refers to "bootable USB flash drive".

Given my failed attempts to boot Windows 10 32-bit from bootable USB for the past few days, and I wasted so much time looking for relevant post on SU, I feel the question I have might actually be the same question that many end users wanted to ask.

I am not sure if I should proceed to create a new question, or leave to a more experienced user on SU to formulate the question to address all matters above.

Above all, can we have a canonical question and answer for Windows 10? This would be a one-stop resource for end users to create bootable media for Windows 10 without issues.

user109256