Windows 11 will lock the file system on some USB sticks and SD cards in 2027

As of January 2027, Microsoft intends to prevent Windows 11 from opening certain USB sticks, SD cards, and other portable storage devices. This will only affect storage devices formatted with the ReFS file system (which stands for Resilient File System). This is still a popular file system, used, for example, on backup servers. However, it has nothing to do with booting Windows 11 from a USB stick (we explain the benefits of this here).

For most users, this is unlikely to change anything: Many USB sticks and SD cards use file systems such as FAT32 or exFAT. Media formatted with NTFS are also unaffected by the announced restriction. The change will be particularly significant if you have set up a removable storage device using ReFS yourself or are using such a device.