In this article will discuss an interesting feature called Windows To Go. This function allows you to install Windows on a portable device, such as a USB flash drive. In other words, you can transfer an already installed Windows onto a flash drive and boot from it. This feature works on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
Differences between a regular Windows installation and Windows To Go:
– You cannot update or receive current updates.
– Internal drives will be in standalone mode, meaning they will be disabled by default, and you will only be able to use your removable drive.
Hibernate mode is disabled by default. You can enable it from group policy settings.
– System rollback/recovery function is not available.
– Factory reset is also unavailable.
– BitLocker is disabled.
How to create a flash drive with Windows installed?
There are many applications that allow you to create a flash drive with Windows To Go functionality, but in this article, we will look at the most popular utility in this direction – Rufus.
You can download Rufus either from our server or from the official Rufus website.
– Launch the utility.
– Your flash drive should be automatically detected in the “Device” dropdown menu, but if you have multiple USB devices, select the appropriate one.
– In the “Boot selection” button, choose the pre-downloaded installer on your PC. It can be any version of Windows 10 or Windows 8.1. We recommend using only original Windows installers. You can download various installers from our catalog on the next page.
– In the “Image options” dropdown menu, select “Windows To Go”.
– Next, you can name the volume, for example, “Windows 10”.
– Choose the “NTFS” file system.
Then you can click the “Start” button.
The next step is to select the OS version. Typically, system images for installation offer several versions of Windows, such as Pro, Home, etc. Choose the one you need. In our case, let’s select Windows 10 Home.
Then confirm formatting the flash drive. All previously recorded files on the flash drive will be permanently deleted.
Now wait for the writing process to complete. The writing process may take about 40-60 minutes, depending on the type of USB (2.0 or 3.0) and the speed of your flash drive.
After writing to the flash drive is complete, you can insert the flash drive into the desired PC and set it as the boot device in the Bios/UEFI.
