Windows to Go - anyone using it

[Zak33]

Hi all

Who uses Windows to Go on a USB drive?

Are the USB drives really as restricted as the comments online suggest? ie are there really Certified USB drives?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Never heard of it??

[GoNz0]

I used to use it on an old Sandisk Extreme drive that was one of the 1st run that supported this, it used to fail to boot every other time even on the same computer, swapping computers normally meant it wouldn't work. When I had to RMA the drive (unrelated) the new one didn't support it so I gave up.

[peterb]

Hi all

Who uses Windows to Go on a USB drive?

Are the USB drives really as restricted as the comments online suggest? ie are there really Certified USB drives?

Have you been rummaging in the "Miscellaneous tech" box again?

[Zak33]

yes I have.... there are SO MANY things ....

[DDY]

I tried with Win 10 EDU and a special Kingston drive, but I couldn't get it to reliably boot on any of my machines.

I had ideas of a portable idiot-resistant OS, for others to use when I lend machines. I did try Linux off USB sticks, but success was limited, as those who'd I consider risky enough to warrant the use of a portable OS were incidently the same ones who couldn't figure out how to launch a web browser in Linux.

[mikerr]

I had ideas of a portable idiot-resistant OS, for others to use when I lend machines. I did try Linux off USB sticks, but success was limited, as those who'd I consider risky enough to warrant the use of a portable OS were incidently the same ones who couldn't figure out how to launch a web browser in Linux.

For that I have a pendrive with cubLinux on - which boot into ChromiumOS - effectively a Chromebook on a stick:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cublinux/

[Zak33]

i'm surprised it's not worked for you guys... not that I have it ...I'm just looking to see it's success.....or not!

[DDY]

i'm surprised it's not worked for you guys... not that I have it ...I'm just looking to see it's success.....or not!

To be fair, I didn't try very hard, I didn't have the 'special' USB drive for long and I had a massive falling out with Windows 10 for other reasons.

Given the cost of the 'special' USB drives, I ended up using internal SSDs and re-imaging Windows on them when they came back with Bonzai Buddy.

[scaryjim]

Bit of a necro, but I somehow managed to miss this thread first time around!

I've never used "official" Windows to Go, but there were instructions kicking around some moons ago for installing Enterprise versions of Windows onto any USB pen drive, which then functioned identically to official Windows to Go. And it worked absolutely fine for me - I stuck it on a microSD card in a mini USB card reader, and booted it on a variety of machines. Performance once it had started wasn't bad, but boot times were pretty appalling, and I stopped using it because it didn't really seem to offer much of an advantage once google docs/office 365 made most of the important programs you might want to carry around available online.

As an aside, at one point when I was doing drive migration between HDDs and SSDs, I left the old HDD connected up with the USB caddy I was using and the laptop just booted straight off the USB, recognising it as a Windows to Go workspace...

[noir_cl]

I haven't used Windows to Go specifically, but W10 can boot from any hardware and besides the slow boot for the first time due to different hardware it works great. Windows to go definitely seems interesting, could you install it on a spare drive like scaryjim suggests to have an idiot proof box to let family (specially children) use your computer without them looking at your data or filling the pc with virus?

[Blaineoliver]

also a good way of using someone elses' PC without worrying about if they have a virus or something dodgy installed.