Solved Creating a WTG (Windows to Go) drive issues

cereberus · May 14, 2023

I have had lots of problems trying to create a WTG usb drive for my UEFI laptop. On my my old Lenovo laptop, it was a doddle.

I tried to create one manually using dism and bcdboot commands, but pc just would not boot from usb drive, even though the installation iso had all the drivers injected. I tried to even use Rufus (using gpt for UEFI option). It just hung during installation. I tried a couple of other methods and they all failed to boot.

I have previously tried Hasleo's Wintousb but the free version only supports Home, and it never worked anyway.

I noted there was a new version, so I tried it and to my surprise, I was able to create a wtg usb version for Home, and it activated as well (PC has an embedded w10 home licence)

I was hmmming and haaahhing about buying the pro version to install pro as wtg, but it was not important enough to pay £30 for ability to create a Pro wtg drive.

Then I thought that maybe I could just upgrade the Home WTG version to Pro by entering the Pro generic key and it worked. It also activated as pc has a digital licence for Pro.

Ghot · May 14, 2023

cereberus said:
I have had lots of problems trying to create a WTG usb drive

Great post. Too bad only about 30% of the Eleven Forum members know what WTG stands for.

Haydon · May 14, 2023

This thread makes me wonder if it was possible to create a WTG for W11 that will run on incompatible hardware?

SIW2 · May 14, 2023

I expect so.

Haydon · May 14, 2023

LOL, I expected step-by-step instructions to create one

cereberus · May 15, 2023

Haydon said:
LOL, I expected step-by-step instructions to create one

1. Install WintoUSB
2. Select W11 iso
3. add key drivers (nvme irst driver particularly)
4. Install selecting gpt for uefi - select legacy option (that does not refer to legacy bios - term is confusing). You have to install Home version (Index 1)
5. Optional - upgrade to Pro by adding generic key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

cereberus · May 15, 2023

Ghot said:
Great post. Too bad only about 30% of the Eleven Forum members know what WTG stands for.

95% of all satistics are made up.

Title updated for the 7% (not 70%) who do not know what WTG means.

cereberus · May 15, 2023

I booted into normal windows, inserted usb and made a Macrium Reflect image of the usb drive.

I then tried to open image using Macrium ViBoot, and it worked first time.

I then merged the differencing disk with the parent to a new vhdx, and I now have a vhdx of the drive which works in a vm.

jimbo45 · May 15, 2023

cereberus said:
I have had lots of problems trying to create a WTG usb drive for my UEFI laptop. On my my old Lenovo laptop, it was a doddle.

I tried to create one manually using dism and bcdboot commands, but pc just would not boot from usb drive, even though the installation iso had all the drivers injected. I tried to even use Rufus (using gpt for UEFI option). It just hung during installation. I tried a couple of other methods and they all failed to boot.

I have previously tried Hasleo's Wintousb but the free version only supports Home, and it never worked anyway.

I noted there was a new version, so I tried it and to my surprise, I was able to create a wtg usb version for Home, and it activated as well (PC has an embedded w10 home licence)

I was hmmming and haaahhing about buying the pro version to install pro as wtg, but it was not important enough to pay £30 for ability to create a Pro wtg drive.

Then I thought that maybe I could just upgrade the Home WTG version to Pro by entering the Pro generic key and it worked. It also activated as pc has a digital licence for Pro.

Surprised at that -- becuase you are usually an expert at these things.

I still think the idea of using HYPER-V to create a VM (which can have several vhdx windows systems in it) on a Windows host and then clone the whole kybosh to an external drive is the best.

Works every time for me and I don't even need to re-install the windows boot loader. Attach target drive in the VM as a physical device and simply on any of the booted up installations on that single VM run Macrium ---> clone disk. You don't even need to use vhdx files within the VM either. Also works using a Linux host same idea - add the target drive as a physical disc.

My standard WintoGo system is usually 2 systems - one Canary and 1 Dev -- the canary one is not on a vhdx file while the dev one is.

so the VM disk is EFI partition , Msr, data which includes the vhdx file for my 2nd windows system

the vhdx file when attached as a disk just shows as a single ntfs data area (no efi partition on it either).

Provided you've got the physical windows drivers installed somewhere (I cloned an initial physical windows system to a VM initially) then at boot of the cloned disk you can just go down the "update driver ----> then select include subdirectories and point the selection to c:\windows\system32 for each device you've got a query against. The video will be the most important as it will start off in Ms basic video driver mode.

The other advantage of a VM is that if you update to a newer build then it's simple. WTG installs don't update to new builds on xternal devices - certainly the newer DEV and Canary releases don't.

cheers
jimbo

Haydon · May 15, 2023

cereberus said:
1. Install WintoUSB
2. Select W11 iso
3. add key drivers (nvme irst driver particularly)
4. Install selecting gpt for uefi - select legacy option (that does not refer to legacy bios - term is confusing). You have to install Home version (Index 1)
5. Optional - upgrade to Pro by adding generic key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Does the resulting WTG run on W11 incompatible hardware? That was the context of the issue (post #3) I thought it would be a cheap and non-intrusive way to prolong the life of old machines (albeit not quite ideal)

jimbo45 · May 15, 2023

Haydon said:
Does the resulting WTG run on W11 incompatible hardware? That was the context of the issue (post #3) I thought it would be a cheap and non-intrusive way to prolong the life of old machines (albeit not quite ideal)

That's 100% reason why I DON'T do it that way -- using my clone a VM back to a physical external drive you can run it on older hardware etc etc. Even without TPM and supported CPU . You still though need at least efi even if not sec boot.

No paid or otherwise Windows 3rd party software required.

After you've got the WTG working -- if you install stuff that can't be installed on a VM or tested - then install software / hardware as normal on the WTG system and then clone the WTG system back to the VM and then when you want to update to a newer build, update the VM and clone back.

A Windows VM is fine - just boot GPARTED up from an ISO within the VM to copy partitions etc if you don't have macrium etc.

Works IMO 100% every time if you read the posts - especially with W11 drivers. The initial Windows system(s) should be done via dism /Apply-Image though whether or not you use vhdx files.

Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · May 15, 2023

Haydon said:
Does the resulting WTG run on W11 incompatible hardware? That was the context of the issue (post #3) I thought it would be a cheap and non-intrusive way to prolong the life of old machines (albeit not quite ideal)

It will run on any pc that is uefi based regardles of which pc created it.

cereberus · May 15, 2023

jimbo45 said:
That's 100% reason why I DON'T do it that way -- using my clone a VM back to a physical external drive you can run it on older hardware etc etc. Even without TPM and supported CPU . You still though need at least efi even if not sec boot.

No paid or otherwise Windows 3rd party software required.

After you've got the WTG working -- if you install stuff that can't be installed on a VM or tested - then install software / hardware as normal on the WTG system and then clone the WTG system back to the VM and then when you want to update to a newer build, update the VM and clone back.

A Windows VM is fine - just boot GPARTED up from an ISO within the VM to copy partitions etc if you don't have macrium etc.

View attachment 60178

Works IMO 100% every time if you read the posts - especially with W11 drivers. The initial Windows system(s) should be done via dism /Apply-Image though whether or not you use vhdx files.

Cheers
jimbo

Seriously, don't you think I tried all that? I was doing this stuff years before you.

Somewhere along the line the initial boot does not work - I suspect it is the IRST NVME drive.

The Wintousb software allowed me to add that driver, even though the W11 iso had it.

jimbo45 · May 15, 2023

cereberus said:
Seriously, don't you think I tried all that? I was doing this stuff years before you.

Somewhere along the line the initial boot does not work - I suspect it is the IRST NVME drive.

The Wintousb software allowed me to add that driver, even though the W11 iso had it.

As I said - I know you are good at this sort of stuff which is why I'm totally fazed as to why you aren't having success with it via "Classical; Windows" methods.

Wasn't under-estimating your ability --in fact it was you who gave me the whole idea of using HYPER-V in the first place and vhdx files, So hopefully no mis-understanding there. For others the VM thing might well work --at least it's an option. It probably is the Nvme stuff. No idea as I don't have a Lenovo laptop.

Cheers
jimbo

Ghot · May 15, 2023

cereberus said:
95% of all satistics are made up.

Title updated for the 7% (not 70%) who do not know what WTG means.

And here I was convinced it meant: Wash the Giraffe.

Haydon · May 15, 2023

Ghot said:
And here I was convinced it meant: Wash the Giraffe.

LOL, I watched on TV a zookeeper washing an elephant and the beast farted

cereberus · May 15, 2023

Haydon said:
LOL, I watched on TV a zookeeper washing an elephant and the beast farted

I installed W11 on a 32GB usb flash drive with WintoUSB which does not meet the W11 spec and it worked fine. Pretty sure it does not care about TPM, cpu type etc.

Haydon · May 15, 2023

cereberus said:
I installed W11 on a 32GB usb flash drive with WintoUSB which does not meet the W11 spec and it worked fine. Pretty sure it does not care about TPM, cpu type etc.

@cereberus Thanks!

BTW, my previous post was in response to @Ghot and it was actual. I'm not positive, but it may have been on the National Geographic channel which sometimes features the Disney zoo.

cereberus · May 17, 2023

I tried to fool Wintousb by creating an iso with a SKU "Windows 11 Pro" but named it "Windows 11 Home" using dism commands but it was clever enough to detect it was Pro. Besides, it is a bit questionable if this is a legitimate use of the free version of Wintousb.

So, my workaround to install Home, and then upgrade is only way to install Pro without buying the paid version. This is not questionable, as I installled Home as per free Wintousb terms. What I do with WTG after I run it is my business.

BTW - back in the day, this was not a restriction.