[How To]Create a Windows To Go Pen Drive To Run Windows 8 From USB Drive

Many of you might not be knowing this feature the “Windows To Go” Feature allows you to Run your Windows operating system right from your USB Drive,i.e you just have to plug in the USB Drive onto your PC and the operating system boots itself from the USB Drive.So you can have your Windows 8 PC in your pocket and whenever and where ever you go,you can run Windows 8 y just plugging your USB Drive to any PC.

So to run the Windows 8 Developer Preview right from your USB Drive what we need beforehand is to install the Windows 8 Developer Preview on the USB Drive First. Windows8italia has created a nice tutorial to install Windows 8 on the USB Drive.

Here are Some of the Prerequisites for the Windows 8 USB :

First of all you would need at least a 16 GB USB Drive with USB 2.0 support(this is the minimum requirement)
It is highly recommended if you can avail yourself with the 32GB USB Drive with 3.0 support for seamless performance of Windows 8 Developer Preview on your PC.
Also make sure that you already have a system pre installed with the Windows 8 Developer Preview(either native install or even a Virtual Machine install would do).

Follow the Steps to Install Windows 8 on your USB Drive:

1. Insert or Mount the DVD/Image of Windows 8 Developer Preview on your System.

2. Download the Windows Automated Installation Kit and install it .

3. After the installation copy the imagex.exe file from the C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools folder according to the system version you are running i.e either the 32 bit folder(x86) or the 64 bit folder from the above mentioned path where the file is located.Copy that file onto your Desktop.

4.Connect the USB Drive to Windows 8, format the drive with primary NTFS Partition.You can either use Disk Management in Windows or if you are familiar with Command prompt you can run the following commands from the CMD prompt(running as administrator)

diskpart (start the partition management tool)
list disk (to identify the USB depending on size)

select disk 1 (assuming that the USB is seen as number 1)
select partition 1 (assuming there is only the partition 1)
delete partition 1 (assuming there is only the partition 1)
create partition primary (we create a primary partition)
format fs = ntfs quick (formatted to NTFS)
active (we set the partition as active to be bootable)
exit (we leave the diskpart tool)

5.After doing all of the above steps enter the following command in the command prompt.

imagex.exe / apply D: \ sources \ install.wim 1 F: \

Things to Keep in mind while you enter the above command:

The Imagex.exe path should be your Desktop path on which the file is copied as mentioned in the previous step 3.
The ” D:” mentioned in the above command corresponds to the Windows 8 DVD Drive letter or the Windows 8 Mounted Image Drive(virtual drive) letter.
The “F:” is nothing but the USB Drive on which you are installing the Windows 8 Developer Preview,so make changes according to your Drive letters while installing it on your PC.

(Since the copy process is a bit slow,it would take upto an hour to complete so be patient.)

6.The final step is to copy the boot files from the installation of the Windows 8 Developer Preview,enter the following command in the command prompt(running as administrator).

bcdboot.exe F: \ windows / s F: / f ALL

(The” F:” Corrsponds to your USB Drive,so accordingly make changes in the above command).

7.Now you have successfully installed Windows 8 on your USB Drive,now you can exit the command prompt.

You can now directly Boot Windows 8 from your Windows To Go Drive on your PC,just make sure that you have set USB as your First boot device before plugging in the Drive in your System ,Enjoy Windows 8 On the Go :D .

Payam 1995

cool
Didodid

In step 5 give me that error : imagex.exe / is not recognized as an internal or external command, perable program or bach file.Help ?
- Payam Mashrequi
  
  I don’t know but works really good for me …… i am booting it from my external usb HDD.
- Cnjrr
  
  I got the same thing, you have to tell it the location ( path) of imagex.exe on your desktop
  
  in my case it was
  
  c:> usersjdesktopimagex /apply f:sourcesinstall.wim 1 e:
  
  too much knowledge was taken for granted
  - Cnjrr
    
    One other problem I had, Disk Management won’t let you set a USB drive as active,
    ( it’s greyed out ) so diskpart is the way to go.
Anonymous

Wow. Such complicated steps and all this trouble just to get to run a live system from removable drive? Is this what Windows 8 calls a feature? You could run MS-DOS from a floppy drive!

Ubuntu and others have had this feature for years, and it is as easy as burning a CD or DVD; and for USB all you need is to run a simple utility that does the job for you.

Windows 8 requires 16 GB USB drive? Is that a joke? A CD has less that 1 GB and is enough to run Ubuntu, etc. And ubuntu comes with a productivity applications suite, while Windows has only the basic utilities plus Wordpad.

Windows 8 has many interesting features and I am very interested in them. But this “Windows To Go” crap is so troublesome and lame that I would call it a feature.
- CommonSenseMan
  
  hey ubunTuuuuuu guy, what are you doing here? go back to your “freeware” bs world!
  - LorgnocOspYe
    
    Did you think you were replying to someone else or were you drunk?
    
    For your information, I do not use Ubuntu.
  - LorgnocOspYe
    
    By the way, I do not agree with you about the “freeware world” being that of Ubuntu.
    
    In my opinion, the “freeware world” is that of Android, because it is the system where most applications are ad-supported freeware. And the very Microsoft Windows gets the second place, because most Windows users do not pay for any software; everything they use is either freeware or comes from software piracy. As such, one can also say that Windows users like in the “piracy world”. This is likely to change with Windows 8 on ARM devices, thanks to applications being installed from the Windows Store.
    
    Ubuntu users have got tons of open source software on their Software Center, so most of them do not make use of freeware, except for Google Chrome. And users of Apple Mac OS have got the money to pay for their hardware and they pay for their software too (then again, except for Google Chrome).
Jorg

In step 6 no result, bootfiles doesn’t create
Clark Kent

A couple of things to consider here. Make sure you do this from Windows 8. The /f switch wasn’t working. As well there are certain USB sticks that are not created equally.

There should be GUI as there was in the developer preview. This will allow for customizations.