Running Windows from an external USB drive with Windows To Go

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Interesting.

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD2011/HW-245T

If you have an Enterprise Edition of Windows 8, such as the Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation Edition, you can create a Windows To Go USB Flash Drive.

Go to the Metro UI page and type “Windows To Go”
Click on “Settings”
Click on “Windows To Go”

A “Create a Windows To Go workspace” window will open

If you don’t have a USB plugged in you will get a message

“Searching for devices”, and then you will get a message

“Can’t find a connected USB drive. Make sure you’ve inserted one.”

If you plug in a USB drive it will see the USB drive, the messages will disappear, and it will show the flash drive. I used an 8GB Flash drive and it showed it as 7.54GB.

The “Next” button was greyed out. I hope that it will not let me proceed because I don’t have a big enough USB drive, although it’s possible that even with a 32GB or 64GB USB drive, it still would not let you proceed if it was not a Microsoft Certified device.

I don’t have a 32GB USB drive, so I couldn’t try to set it up. Microsoft recomends Microsoft Certified USB drives. I looked up the Kingston Data Traveler Workspace – Windows Certified drive, and it was $137.00 for 32GB. They also have 64GB and 128GB for more money.

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The “Next” button was greyed out. I hope that it will not let me proceed because I don’t have a big enough USB drive, although it’s possible that even with a 32GB or 64GB USB drive, it still would not let you proceed if it was not a Microsoft Certified device.

I read in the comments that the drive has to be set up (firmware) to appear as if its non-removable.
I would further speculate that unless the drive is not basically as fast as an SSD and connected via a USB 3 port, it will be tremendously slow, so certification probably includes at least those two requirements and accounts for the cost.

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I read in the comments that the drive has to be set up (firmware) to appear as if its non-removable.
I would further speculate that unless the drive is not basically as fast as an SSD and connected via a USB 3 port, it will be tremendously slow, so certification probably includes at least those two requirements and accounts for the cost.

According to the video, it is very fast with USB 2.0. The presenter claimed that the speeds were comparable to booting and running from a hard drive.

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This is intriguing. It’s like a VM on a stick. I suspect that its not all that slow. VMs don’t need fast disk to run decently. I don’t have a big enough USB drive to test this out.

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I got a “32GB” USB Flash Drive

but now it is complaining about it being “Removable”

After a little internet search I found that “Lexar BootIt” is the recommended app to flip the Removable bit, but it is designed to work with Lexar USB drives, and not all flash drives are compatible. The “Team” flash drive that I got is not. BootIt says that it has flipped the bit, but the “Create a Windows To Go workspace tool is not buying it.

Any body got any ideas?

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I put screen shots of the “Create a Windows To Go workspace tool, and the Removable Disk(E:) Properties in the post above. They were in the post before I clicked on “Post Quick Reply”, but they don’t seem to be in the finished post. Is that a rule of the forum, no screen shots, or is there a way to do it?

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Download a conversion program such as the ‘Lexar Bootit’ program, SmartUSB or Portable Storage Explorer. These programs convert a removable storage media flash drive into a fixed hard drive.

Anybody ever heard of SmartUSB or Portable Storage Explorer?

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