Windows To Go: Create a portable Windows system on a USB flash drive. Windows to go technology - the best programs for creating a WTG flash drive

Windows To Go (abbreviated WTG) is a little-known but very interesting feature included in the Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows 10 (also supported on Windows 8 / 8.1), which allows you to write a fully functional operating system onto a USB flash drive or removable hard drive , and then use it in conjunction with any other computer. Windows To Go is primarily designed for enterprise Windows users to work with computers that meet the specifications of Windows 7 and later, regardless of the operating system. The OS on which the end computer runs plays absolutely no role, since a flash drive with Windows To Go is bootable media that in no way interferes with the main drive of the computer and the data on it. Windows To Go is convenient because it allows you to use the same operating system image that is used in a corporate environment and is accordingly governed by the same rules. Windows To Go is not designed to permanently replace a regular computer. This is rather an alternative option for effective temporary using the computer that the user currently has in his hands.

Windows To Go works like a normal Windows installation, with a few exceptions. As mentioned above, internal drives are disabled when booting from Windows To Go. Likewise, media containing a copy of Windows To Go is not recognized by the working operating system of the computer it is connected to (the drive is not assigned a letter, so it does not appear in Explorer). The Trusted Platform Module also does not work, hibernation is disabled by default, operating system reset mechanisms are not available, as well as updating from To Go from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.

A flash drive with a copy of Windows To Go can be used on a variety of computers, regardless of their configuration. When you first start the system, it detects the host components and downloads the necessary drivers.

Windows TO Go will find its application among users who, for example, do not have a permanent workplace, travel a lot, or work from home. Such an employee receives a To Go flash drive with configured programs, access to company networks, configured security policies and other company-specific parameters, connects it to his computer and works.

How to create a USB flash drive with Windows To Go

Attentive users probably know that part of the Windows Control Panel is the Windows To Go section. This is the standard wizard for creating Windows To Go drives - the official way. The problem is that the average user has absolutely no need for it from the word “at all”. There are several explanations for this. Firstly, the standard Windows To Go flash drive burning wizard only works with special certified USB drives with a capacity of at least 32 GB, which is extremely small. The average user cannot get such a flash drive - they are not sold in transitions or in consumer electronics stores. Secondly, only corporate versions of Windows 8 / 8.1 and 10 can be recorded through the standard utility. Neither the Professional, nor even the Home editions are supported. Therefore, we will not focus your attention on using the built-in mechanisms for creating a Windows To Go flash drive. If you really want to watch it, click Win+R, enter the command control, and then in the Control Panel search, type To Go.

Generally speaking, the usefulness of the Windows To Go feature in the form in which it was originally created by Microsoft tends to zero for the average user, so this article is mostly informational and theoretical in nature. If you really want to try Windows To Go, you can use one of the third-party utilities to create bootable drives. To be fair, it is worth noting that in some scenarios, Windows To Go media may be useful to the user in an emergency. For example, the drive in your computer has failed. You can create such a flash drive for yourself and keep it just in case.

Many of the third party applications support creating analogues Windows To Go media bypasses many Microsoft rules. For example, WinToUSB can create Windows To Go disks with any edition of Windows (even Windows 10 Home or Windows 7, if you want), and some can even burn images even to 16 GB media. You will need a drive with at least 32 GB of free space and preferably USB 3.0 standard. 2.0 will do, but the speed will be noticeably lower. There are also other applications, like AOMEI Partition Assistant (it’s the one that can write to 16 GB), but this one requires purchasing a license to create Windows To Go media, so we won’t consider it.

1. Download WinToUSB from the official website. The application is free. Install it and run it. By the way, the program supports the Russian language.
2. The application interface is as primitive as possible, but it does its job, so don’t pay attention. In the field Image file Select the path to the ISO file of the operating system you want to burn.
3. The application will automatically detect the editions that are available within the image. Select the one you need and click Next.
4. In the next step, select from the drop-down list Please select a target drive your drive. If you are using USB2.0 media, the application will warn you that the performance may not be sufficient to create a Windows To Go environment.
5. Select a partition system. The choice depends on whether the destination computer supports UEFI. You can select MBR for Legacy BIOS only, GPT only for UEFI, or MBR for BIOS and UEFI. We talked about this in detail in a separate article.
6. Wait while the application formats your flash drive. Then click Next and wait for the procedure to complete. This may take several hours, so be patient or just do something else.
7. After the recording is complete, reboot, go to the Boot Menu of your computer and select the flash drive to which you just recorded Windows. The system will start up and then prompt you to complete the initial setup.

Now you have a very slow but fully functioning operating system from a USB drive that you can use for your needs, whatever they may be.

Windows To Go (WTG) technology, one of the new features of Windows 8, allows you to create a properly configured OS image with the necessary software installed, which will boot directly from a USB drive, regardless of what OS is installed on the computer to which it is connected USB storage device. As part of this post, we will briefly discuss possible scenarios for using WTG, configuration and some features of use.

Why is this necessary?

Accordingly, WTG refers to the corporate capabilities of Windows 8, that is, it is aimed at use primarily in the enterprise. The most obvious scenarios for using WTG:

• Mobile employees. Employees who, for example, often move between company branches and at the same time need each of them to access the corporate network using their own settings, documents, etc. Instead of a laptop weighing a couple of kilograms, carry with you a small external hard drive or even a flash drive , may be a very attractive option for many. Arriving at the next site, you just need to plug the media into a suitable computer.
• Temporary employees working, for example, within the framework of a project. Such an employee may have his own laptop, which in no way meets the security requirements of your network. Provide him with the prepared media with the WTG image, and this employee will be able to use your image on his laptop to work on the project.
• Employees without fixed jobs(or shift workers), who nevertheless need to access the corporate network in the office or outside it.
• Work from home. If necessary, an employee can boot a home computer using the prepared WTG image and gain access to the corporate network and business applications.

How to set up WTG?

Media requirements

• Kingston DataTraveler Workspace for Windows To Go (http://www.kingston.com/wtg/)
• Spyrus Portable Workplace (http://www.spyruswtg.com/)
• Spyrus Secure Portable Workplace (http://www.spyruswtg.com/)
• Super Talent Express RC8 for Windows To Go (http://www.supertalent.com/wtg/)
• Western Digital My Passport Enterprise (http://www.wd.com/wtg)

Host Requirements

WTG Deployment Options

• using the Windows To Go Creator Wizard;
• using a script (PowerShell + DISM or ImageX image utilities);
• using the User Self-Provisioning tool in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1.

Supported editions of Windows 8

Creating an image using Windows To Go Creator Wizard

On the first screen, select the desired media.

Using the “Add search location” button, specify the folder with the wim file(s).

The wizard analyzes and displays the found images.

On the next screen, you can enable media encryption using BitLocker.

Everything is ready to create WTG, all you have to do is click “Create”.

Creating an image takes some time. In my case, the wim file had a volume of approximately 3 GB, was located on an SSD disk, and the WTG media creation time was 12 minutes.

On the last screen, the wizard prompts you to change the boot order of your computer so that next time the machine boots from USB.

Actually, that's all. All that remains is to boot from the prepared media and start working.

Features of using WTG

When you boot from WTG media for the first time, the hardware is detected on a certain computer and the appropriate drivers are installed. This process, of course, takes some time. However, the system remembers the configuration for this computer and subsequent bootups on it occur without delay.

For security reasons, by default, the local hard drive of the computer on which we booted using WTG is in an offline state, and access to partitions of this drive is prohibited. This setting can be changed. In addition, if the user has administrative rights to the computer, he can manually bring the disk online and gain access to the partitions.

For the same reasons, in the opposite situation, when, while working at a computer, you connect a WTG media, Windows mounts this media without assigning letters to the media partitions. Thus, the WTG device is not visible in Windows Explorer.

When running on new hardware, Windows must be activated. Let me remind you that WTG is positioned as a corporate opportunity, so it is assumed that the organization has a KMS service configured or activation through Active Directory (a new feature in Windows Server 2012), and then the activation process will go unnoticed by the user.

When using WTG, all Windows features are available, except the Windows Store. This is done because purchases in the Windows Store are tied to a specific computer, and the corresponding applications are disabled when launched on another machine. However, if you need the Windows Store to be available, you can enable it for WTG images through group or local policies: \\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Store\.

The last note relates to setting up the computer to boot from a USB drive. If you need the user to be able to independently change the boot order of the computer without going into the BIOS or pressing some magic key combination, you can use a special utility present in any edition of Windows 8. You can find it in a well-known way by pressing Win+W and typing “ Windows To Go".

Select the desired item, and the next time you restart, the system will start booting from USB.

Thus, WTG is an easy and secure way to create a managed Windows 8 mobile image for your employees.

Additional information about Windows To Go technology can be obtained in the report “Overview of Windows To Go Technology: New Features, Application Scenarios and Deployment Methods in an Enterprise Environment” at the TechEd Russia 2012 conference.

Active Directory features in Windows Server 2012, including activation via AD, are discussed in the first module of the course “New Features in Windows Server 2012. Part 2. Security, Management, Remote Access, Web Platform” on the MVA portal.

I hope the material was useful.

A few years ago, after a long wait, Windows 8 was released. Reactions varied to the radically redesigned appearance of Windows. Regardless of your personal opinion, everyone can agree that Microsoft's new OS will dominate for years to come. Windows 8 received a huge amount of attention, the company threw aside a lot of functions that are only now beginning to be implemented in Windows 10. One of these innovations was Windows To Go (WTG).

What is Windows To Go?

Windows To Go allows you to install a fully functional Windows 10/8 environment. An operating system installed on an external hard drive or USB flash drive, following the example of previously created Live CDs. The bootable USB flash drive Windows To Go makes a portable system similar to Linux, which is designed to run from USB drives or flash drives. With WIndows To Go you can run your system on any computer, anywhere in the world.

This feature is aimed primarily at enterprise customers with the idea that the enterprise environment can be taken anywhere. WTG provides a secure, complete software environment when an employee works remotely or from a shared computer. Because Windows To Go was designed with this specific use in mind, Microsoft does not officially support the use of non-enterprise versions of Windows in a WTG environment. As they say, it does not support and this does not mean that it is impossible.

There are several ways to install any version of Windows 10/8 into a USB flash drive. You just need to know what is said there and what the restrictions are. Some limitations include no BitLocker protection, no store access, and the inability to boot into BIOS and UEFI computers.

Differences between Windows To Go and a regular Windows installation

Windows To Go is designed for any job, just like in regular versions of Windows. Microsoft has disabled a number of features:

• Internal drives operate offline (not connected to a network) to prevent data from being accidentally exposed.
• The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is not used. This is because TPM is specific to a specific computer, and Windows To Go drives are designed to be moved between computers.
• Hibernation is disabled by default to make it easier to move between computers.
• Windows Recovery Environment is not available. If you need to repair your Windows To Go disc, Microsoft will prompt you to burn it to a new one.
• Updating or rebooting the Windows workspace for Go is not supported. Factory reset for computers is not applied when running WTG.
• Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 WTG drives cannot be upgraded to Windows 10, and Windows 10 WTG drives cannot be upgraded to future versions of Windows 10. Therefore, the drive must be formatted for new versions.

Additionally, Windows to Go discs can be loaded onto multiple computers. So when the WTG drive boots first, it detects all the hardware on the host computer. It will then install all the necessary drivers, which may require several reboots. Subsequently, when Windows to Go USB boots on that host computer, it will be able to identify that computer and automatically load the correct drivers.

Computer requirement

Windows to Go will run on hardware that has been certified for use with Windows 7 or later. If you want to be sure before you start using it, here are some specifications:

• Should be able to boot from USB.
• Minimum 1 GHz processor.
• Minimum 2 GB RAM.
• Make sure the Windows image architecture is compatible with the processor. This means that you will not be able to run a 64-bit version of Windows to upgrade to a 32-bit processor.
• Windows to go from a computer running Windows RT is not supported.
• Windows to go to go to Mac is not supported.

USB flash drive for Windows to go

In theory, any USB 2.0 or 3.0 drive with 16GB of storage space will work with Windows for Go, but:

• At the same time, USB 3.0 will work twice as fast, which will speed up file copying and performance.
• It is better to use a flash drive of at least 32 GB to store more files and information.
• Avoid cheap USB drives due to the high number of read/write cycles during normal Windows operation.
• Microsoft has revealed some USB drives certified by WTG, in case you're curious.

How to create a Windows To Go flash drive with any version of Windows

1 way. There are several ways to configure the Windows environment. When downloading programs from sites, do not be alarmed, the sites are in English, and the downloaded programs are in Russian. Let's look at some of them. You must have a flash drive, the image of Windows 10 or Windows 8. Download the AOMEI Partition Assistant application and install it on your computer. Insert your flash drive or external drive into your computer. Launch the downloaded program and follow these steps:

• 1. Click Windows To Go Creator.
• 2. Click Browse to select a windows iso image.
• 3. Click again Browse and specify the path to your Windows 10 Pro image on your computer or another version of Windows.

Method 2.

Computer maintenance and repair specialists have long been creating a variety of operating system builds that allow them to boot safely on machines infected with viruses or simply having problems with the stability of the main operating system. Now they have at their disposal a powerful official tool for this purpose, specially developed by Microsoft itself. Windows To Go is a special version of Windows 8 Enterprise that allows you to transfer Windows to a USB drive and boot your computer from it without installation.

"Windows To Go" can be downloaded on regular desktop computers, laptops, and even tablets. The license agreement does not allow it to be installed on computers or laptops when they are sold, since the main purpose of this system is to perform auxiliary, service tasks in emergency situations in the workplace.

In fact, "Windows To Go" is the official portable version from Microsoft. Unlike many analogues created by third-party developers, this system is completely managed from the corporate Windows environment of the enterprise.

"Windows To Go" can be run on different computers and the system will remember the individual settings of each of them. For each of the computers on which it will boot, "Windows To Go" will detect and remember all the hardware and necessary drivers. At each subsequent boot, the system will launch the drivers of this particular PC. "Windows To Go" is fully compatible with "stationary" versions of Windows, but you need to understand that the programs, for the most part, are not designed to work in "roaming mode" and may not function correctly if launched on a computer other than the one on which they were installed.

"Windows To Go" requires a USB disk or flash drive with a capacity of at least 32 GB. It can support both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 protocols. You can install Windows To Go on a portable device using the special program "Portable Workspace Creator" included with Windows 8.

Windows To Go Limitations

Compared to regular desktop versions, "Windows To Go" has several limitations:

• Automatic hibernation and sleep functions are disabled – Windows To Go initially disables automatic hibernation or power-off. This is done in order to reduce the risk of damage to the equipment on which the system will be run. If necessary, automatic power off can be enabled through Group Policy settings.
• At the logical level, the internal drives of the computer are disabled. A significant part of the cases when you need to use "Windows To Go" will be associated with restoring the system after a virus infection. For this reason, at the time of the first boot, "Windows To Go" logically disables all of the computer's own drives. They are not visible in Windows Explorer after loading. This setting can also be changed.
• Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is not used. If you enable Windows To Go to encrypt information, it will not use your BitLocker Drive Encryption system password, but rather your own Windows system password. This is necessary because the TPM is tied to a specific computer, which defeats the purpose of Windows To Go.
• Windows Recovery Environment mode is missing. If the media on which you installed "Windows To Go" is damaged, it will be impossible to restore "Windows To Go" using the standard Windows recovery system. You will need to create a new instance of Windows To Go and configure it again.
• Rebooting using a button on the system unit is not possible. For security purposes, Windows To Go does not respect shutdown commands from your computer's hardware.

"Windows To Go" is an excellent system recovery tool that a computer recovery specialist should always have on hand in case of emergency situations.

Bring your own PC

It's nice to see how the corporate IT segment is evolving. The big bosses of corporations are giving freedom to users bit by bit. Millions of mobile workers prove every day that improving the work experience does not reduce productivity, but quite the opposite. I brought my personal coffee cup from home to work - no problem. Our own Lumia 920 instead of the “official” Nokia 3310 is excellent. At home you have a modern and ergonomic Ultrabook, but at work you have a desktop from the last century?

The modern trend “Bring your own...” is gaining momentum. Large corporations are actively working to ensure that employees can actively use personal computers and devices at work. The only question that remains is what to do with centralized management and control?

Windows To Go Technology

In my opinion, one of the most anticipated innovations in Windows 8 is Windows To Go technology, which allows you to run Windows from USB drives and external hard drives. This approach allows you to forget about the attachment of the operating system to a specific desktop or laptop. Windows is on a flash drive, which means your computer can always be with you.

It is enough to find a computer equipped with a USB port and the ability to boot from USB drives or Windows 8 installed and you can run your own workstation on it. Why is this opportunity needed? There can be many scenarios:

• Work from your home computer with corporate services. Instead of an unknown and untrusted computer, we get a managed and reliable workstation. This approach can be used both within the corporate network and outside it.
• Working on a shared computer. If several employees share the same computer in a company, then WTG is an excellent choice for “isolating” workstations.
• Work of counterparties within the corporate work network. To improve security, we can simply ensure that their laptops comply with our company's security policies by using WTG.
• Diskless workstations. For increased security and use in complex data protection scenarios.
• Rapid deployment of new branches. When the equipment has either not yet been purchased or is a diverse set of desktops and laptops.

How does this work?

The ability to boot Windows from a USB drive and even over a network via Windows Deployment Services is not new; craftsmen have previously achieved such an opportunity, but using this approach required either significant time investment or the use of an untested, pre-prepared distribution. The G8 now has the ability to run a full-fledged operating system from a USB drive out of the box.

What is needed for this? Formally, for WTG to work, you need to have a certified media of at least 20GB in size, a Windows 8 Enterprise image and a computer with the above-mentioned OS in order to carry out the drive preparation procedure.

The listed “flash drives” are more like SSD drives with a USB interface.

Theoretically, if you have a drive of sufficient capacity, you can boot the OS from external media on any computer that supports booting from USB. Oh, where was this opportunity when I had a netbook with an 8 GB SSD drive?

When installing on external media, two partitions will be created: Bootable FAT32 350 MB (this is necessary for compatibility with “old” systems) and main NTFS, where the system will be installed and which will take up all the remaining space on the media. As an installation image, you can use either install.WIM from the base image or a pre-prepared image that has gone through the sysprep and generalize procedures. If desired (and highly recommended), you can encrypt the image using Bitlocker and if the USB drive is lost, the finder will not be able to access the information on it.

That's all, the drive can be given to an employee who will come home or bring his own PC to work, insert the received flash drive into it and load a prepared and fully managed corporate environment for work, in which the necessary certificates can already be installed, DirectAccess, security policies and all other components that are used in the corporate OS.

WTG activation occurs automatically using a KMS server or Active Directory based volume activation. Windows 8 installed in Windows To Go mode is practically no different from a regular Windows 8 installation (Windows Recovery Environment and PC Reset & Refresh are not supported). After booting, you will see that the local disks are in Offline state. This is required to ensure safety when working from an external drive; however, no one forbids connecting them to the WTG system.

To ensure greater stability, hibernation mode is disabled, although it can be used. Otherwise, this is a completely full-fledged Windows 8, and when using USB 3.0 it is also a high-speed OS.

Installing Windows To Go

The easiest way to get Windows on the go is to use a computer with Windows 8 Enterprise already installed. For mass installations, PowerShell is supported, and for “makeshift” installations, you can use any edition of Windows 7 or 8.

So, connect the required media and press Win + W, enter “Windows To Go” to launch the wizard of the same name and follow its instructions on the screen.

My external hard drive and laptop don't have a USB 3.0 interface, but it doesn't hurt to have a portable work environment.

I select the image that will be installed. In my case, this is the standard install.wim from the Windows 8 Enterprise installation image (you can either mount or unpack it. The required file is located in the sources directory). I repeat once again that you can use a preinstalled image with all programs and settings.

A very important step is to enable encryption of the external drive using BitLocker - maximum reliability of the portable OS.

I sit back and wait for Windows to finish installing Windows.

The last step is to select the WTG boot mode. When you select the automatic boot mode, the wizard will change the entries in the existing Windows boot loader so that when you turn on a computer with a WTG drive connected, the latter will have boot priority. If you select "No", you will need to configure the computer's BIOS to boot from USB.

“Analogue” screenshot for obvious reasons.

This concludes the preparation of the WTG installation and the usual use of Windows 8 begins. What about installing Windows 8 in To Go mode in an unsupported scenario?

Preparing WTG media using Windows 7 or 8

Since ancient times, Microsoft has had an excellent tradition of making home versions of the OS based on fully functional ones. This approach is understandable; after testing the full version of the product, it is much easier to limit the available capabilities than to expand the basic version.

If you don't take into account Windows RT, then version 8 (just eight) can be considered the new home edition of Windows. Microsoft has told us in press releases that Windows To Go is available in Windows 8 Enterprise Edition, but that's not entirely true. Windows 8 Enterprise Edition only contains the Windows To Go media creation wizard, but the ability to boot from a USB drive is included in all editions of Windows 8.

In order to create bootable USB media in Windows 7, we need only three utilities:

1. Diskpart, which is included in the OS.
2. Bcdboot, which is also included in the OS.
3. Dism, which, similar to the previous two, is also available in the basic installation.

It goes without saying that we will need a system image, which will need to be deployed to removable media. This again can be either a standard install.wim from the G8 installation image or a pre-prepared image. For my experiment, I used the standard install.win from Windows 8 (just eight).

The first thing we need is a command line with administrator privileges.

Next, using the diskpart utility, we prepare a partition for installing the OS. If you tried to install Windows 7 in a VHD file, then the procedure will seem familiar, if not, then you need to run the commands sequentially:

1. Launch the utility diskpart by typing her name at the command line. Further commands are executed within this utility.
2. Execute the command list disk to determine the USB drive we need.
3. My external USB drive is identified as Disk 1, so to select it as the object of operations, I enter the command select disk 1. It is important to remember that before continuing, you need to make sure that the necessary information is not on the media, since all data will be lost.
4. To clear the partition configuration, enter the command clean.
5. Create the main disk partition with the command create partition primary.
6. We format the new partition with the command format fs=ntfs quick, then the OS will load from this section.
7. I'm executing the command active so that the OS can boot.
8. I assign the drive letter W to the partition using the command assign letter=W
9. I finish the utility with the command exit.

Only one command is executed:

DISM.exe /Apply-Image /ImageFile:d:\win8\install.wim /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

Where “d:\win8\install.wim” is the path to the system image, “1” is the revision number in the image, “w:” is the disk name assigned in step 8 of the diskpart utility.

A similar procedure can be done using the imagex utility, which is part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit. However, dism is a more convenient and modern way to perform such operations.

All that remains is to create a boot entry. To do this, you need to use the bcdboot utility and run just one command:

Bcdboot w:\windows /s w:

The required drive letter is listed in step 8 of the diskpart utility.

Windows To Go is now completely ready to use. Don't forget to set the computer to boot from USB on the computer that will run this OS.

Conclusions

Installing the OS using Windows To Go mode turned out to be extremely simple. Of course, the use of a portable OS further expands the possibilities of using Windows 8. In my opinion, not only large corporations, but also small businesses and, of course, IT specialists can benefit from using WTG. In conclusion, I would like to add that we have an excellent video demonstrating how Windows To Go works.