Windows on the go usb

user1010 · Mar 30, 2024

Tried follow this guide: How to Create Windows To Go (WTG) Drive Manually

This didn't work for creating the efi partition - set id=c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b. I used create partition efi size=256.

When trying to assign a drive letter to the efi partition or format to fat32 I got:

Virtual Disk Service error:
The operation is not supported on removable media.

...so I'm not able to create: S:\Efi\Microsoft\Boot and S:\Efi\Boot\.

Anyone created a "Windows on the go" USB and know how to do?

kelper · Mar 30, 2024

Those are for Win10. Try these instructions.

How to install Windows 11 & Windows 10 on a USB drive (Windows To Go)

Did you know that you can install Windows directly onto a USB drive, such as a fast portable SSD or even a high-capacity USB memory stick? Having Windows on a flash drive lets you carry your personalized operating system wherever you go, allowing you to run Windows 11 or Windows 10 on almost any...

www.digitalcitizen.life

Berton · Mar 30, 2024

user1010 said:
When trying to assign a drive letter to the efi partition or format to fat32 I got:

Virtual Disk Service error:
The operation is not supported on removable media.

A problem with FAT32 is it can only create and format drives/partitions at sizes up to 32GB, anything larger needs NTFS or exFAT. I have a 500GB HDD on the shelf formatted as FAT32 but done in Linux using the added GPARTED program. There was an article recently on MSN News widget about how the FAT32 programming thing hasn't been changed in Windows for a few/several decades.
Don't know why this link is not in English but it works.

Windows Format Dialog - Search News

News from world, national, and local news sources, organized to give you in-depth news coverage of sports, entertainment, business, politics, weather, and more.

www.bing.com

.bing.com/news/search?q=Windows+Format+Dialog&eventans=1&eventland=0&eventrel=1&qpvt=Windows+format+dialog&FORM=EW

user1010 · Apr 2, 2024

kelper said:
Those are for Win10. Try these instructions.

How to install Windows 11 & Windows 10 on a USB drive (Windows To Go)

Did you know that you can install Windows directly onto a USB drive, such as a fast portable SSD or even a high-capacity USB memory stick? Having Windows on a flash drive lets you carry your personalized operating system wherever you go, allowing you to run Windows 11 or Windows 10 on almost any...

www.digitalcitizen.life

Goes around in circles when booting from usb.

Try3 · Apr 2, 2024

Berton said:
A problem with FAT32 is it can only create and format drives/partitions at sizes up to 32GB, anything larger needs NTFS or exFAT.

Another utility that can format larger partitions as Fat32 is the commonplace MiniToolPartitionWizard.
Windows is quite happy to work with larger Fat32 partitions, it just cannot format them itself.

Denis

cereberus · Apr 2, 2024

Berton said:
A problem with FAT32 is it can only create and format drives/partitions at sizes up to 32GB, anything larger needs NTFS or exFAT. I have a 500GB HDD on the shelf formatted as FAT32 but done in Linux using the added GPARTED program. There was an article recently on MSN News widget about how the FAT32 programming thing hasn't been changed in Windows for a few/several decades.
Don't know why this link is not in English but it works.

Windows Format Dialog - Search News

News from world, national, and local news sources, organized to give you in-depth news coverage of sports, entertainment, business, politics, weather, and more.

www.bing.com

.bing.com/news/search?q=Windows+Format+Dialog&eventans=1&eventland=0&eventrel=1&qpvt=Windows+format+dialog&FORM=EW

This is not relevant to creatinging a wintogousb drive.

cereberus · Apr 2, 2024

Try3 said:
Another utility that can format larger partitions as Fat32 is the commonplace MiniToolPartitionWizard.
Windows is quite happy to work with larger Fat32 partitions, it just cannot format them itself.

Denis

This is not relevant to creating a wintogo usb drive.

cereberus · Apr 2, 2024

user1010 said:
Goes around in circles when booting from usb.

View attachment 92259
View attachment 92260

View attachment 92261

Try using Rufus wintogo option.
Do you have an nvme drive?

jimbo45 · Apr 2, 2024

@user1010

2 Easy ways to create Win2GO -- forget Rufus or anything else and one possible alternative for an existing windows suystem.

create USB drive with Geometry EFI partition, dataarea1, dataarea2 etc -- each data area for the windows you want to install (you can have as many as will fit on your usb drive). To create the efi partition boot windows install disk, >repair system->command mode and convert usb disk to gpt. (diskpart, clean, convert gpt, list disk, select disk xx, create partition efi size=100, format fs=fat32, list vol, select vol xx assign letter=S
assign other partitions (note just standard ntfs partitions)

Then use dism /ApplyImage to install to dataarea1, dataarea2 etc -- use the correct image index to install the build you want
add the bootloader for each windows system to the efi partition and boot ---- plenty of examples in the forums for detailed commands on how to do this.

The other way is simply to image a VM to a USB drive

Another possible solution is to image a standard Windows installation to a USB drive, add the regkey PortableOperatingSystem (set it to 1 as well) and re-apply the bootloader via bcdboot. regkey is in : If it doesn't exist create it. This method might not work all the time though. the other ways do.

(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control)

Cheers
jimbo

Berton · Apr 2, 2024

cereberus said:
This is not relevant to creatinging a wintogousb drive.

But it can be relevant to choosing the size of drive to use and many volunteers know about FAT32 but we don't know the level of experience of other posters and learning is part of it. The news item was just gratis.

jimbo45 · Apr 2, 2024

Berton said:
But it can be relevant to choosing the size of drive to use and many volunteers know about FAT32 but we don't know the level of experience of other posters and learning is part of it. The news item was just gratis.

Seems @cereberus at the moment --in spite of loads of his great advice is perhaps becoming in the words of an old 1960's famous UK actor -- "A grumpy old man".

Windows has problems -- but even though I have to admit it as a real dedicated Linux user -- has any other OS got so many different pieces of hardware and diverse applications to run on basically the same OS.

I agree a lot with the fact that the whole insider program is totally hosed up and most advice from M/s is just plain Bovine Scatology but if you avoid rubbish sites like Reddit and Quora you should be able to get sensible answers to most problems -- even without resorting to "A.I".

Interesting history on UK theatre in 1960's -- John Osborne -brilliant -- worth a dabble into research -- those old things seem so much better and influential than modern social media stuff even if the whole social setup in those days was a load of "Brit Upper Class Wallah's with plum accents".

John Osborne - National Portrait Gallery

Playwright, autobiographer and actor Playwright and actor. Osborne burst onto the scene with his controversial first play Look Back in Anger , which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on 8 May 1956. This seminal work, with its protagonist Jimmy Porter, the 'angry young man', irreversibly...

www.npg.org.uk

Cheers
jimbo

user1010 · Apr 6, 2024

jimbo45 said:
@user1010

2 Easy ways to create Win2GO -- forget Rufus or anything else and one possible alternative for an existing windows suystem.

create USB drive with Geometry EFI partition, dataarea1, dataarea2 etc -- each data area for the windows you want to install (you can have as many as will fit on your usb drive). To create the efi partition boot windows install disk, >repair system->command mode and convert usb disk to gpt. (diskpart, clean, convert gpt, list disk, select disk xx, create partition efi size=100, format fs=fat32, list vol, select vol xx assign letter=S
assign other partitions (note just standard ntfs partitions)

Then use dism /ApplyImage to install to dataarea1, dataarea2 etc -- use the correct image index to install the build you want
add the bootloader for each windows system to the efi partition and boot ---- plenty of examples in the forums for detailed commands on how to do this.

The other way is simply to image a VM to a USB drive

Another possible solution is to image a standard Windows installation to a USB drive, add the regkey PortableOperatingSystem (set it to 1 as well) and re-apply the bootloader via bcdboot. regkey is in : If it doesn't exist create it. This method might not work all the time though. the other ways do.

(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control)

Cheers
jimbo

plenty of examples in the forums for detailed commands on how to do this.

Please post link to any guide :)

antspants · Apr 6, 2024

cereberus said:
Try using Rufus wintogo option.

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2024

antspants said:

@cereberus

That creates a NEW version -- the trick is to create a WintoGO of your current RUNNING version.

Cheers
jimbo

antspants · Apr 6, 2024

I don’t see where the OP says anything about anything other than wanting to create a WinToGo USB. Rufus can accommodate creating a Windows To Go USB. Perhaps the OP could be clearer.

cereberus · Apr 6, 2024

antspants said:
I don’t see where the OP says anything about anything other than wanting to create a WinToGo USB. Rufus can accommodate creating a Windows To Go USB. Perhaps the OP could be clearer.

I am wondering if you create a custom iso of existing installation (see @Kari tenforums tutorial) of rufus would install that. An experiment to report to VIPs at meeting tonight with luck.

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2024

cereberus said:
I am wondering if you create a custom iso of existing installation (see @Kari tenforums tutorial) of rufus would install that. An experiment to report to VIPs at meeting tonight with luck.

That might be interesting -- however I'm running an update which is working by setting the PortableOperatingSystem to '0' and after a reboot running the setip.exe from WITHIN the appropriate windows install (in this case the latest DEV) and it's updating nicely -- if you don't update the PortableOperatingSystem reg key you'll get a message - Cannot install to an external USB.

I cloned an existing copy of a running Windows (was earlier build of DEV) to the external device via Macrium. created the bootloader via bcdboot.exe - updated the reg key to '0' and then ran the stup to update the existing build -- Success.

This IMO seems a bit simpler rather than creating a special install WIM.

I've actually got 4 different Windows systems on the external device

Often more than 1 way to solve the problem -- however for an existing Windows system you want to copy to a Windows2Go system and then update to a newer build - I think I'd prefer my way of doing it. Macrium Free still works for those who don't have it and is still on that majorgeeks website.

Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · Apr 6, 2024

jimbo45 said:
That might be interesting -- however I'm running an update which is working by setting the PortableOperatingSystem to '0' and after a reboot running the setip.exe from WITHIN the appropriate windows install (in this case the latest DEV) and it's updating nicely -- if you don't update the PortableOperatingSystem reg key you'll get a message - Cannot install to an external USB.

I cloned an existing copy of a running Windows (was earlier build of DEV) to the external device via Macrium. created the bootloader via bcdboot.exe - updated the reg key to '0' and then ran the stup to update the existing build -- Success.

This IMO seems a bit simpler rather than creating a special install WIM.

I've actually got 4 different Windows systems on the external device

Often more than 1 way to solve the problem -- however for an existing Windows system you want to copy to a Windows2Go system and then update to a newer build - I think I'd prefer my way of doing it. Macrium Free still works for those who don't have it and is still on that majorgeeks website.

Cheers
jimbo

I love the way you go from London to Paris is via Aberdeen Oslo, Berlin.

All your convoluted solutions are easy for you but you only ever describe key steps and most would be lost very quickly

Why not prepare a proper tutorial?q

Vincelionardi_8 · Apr 6, 2024

Try tiny 11

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2024

cereberus said:
I love the way you go from London to Paris is via Aberdeen Oslo, Berlin.

All your convoluted solutions are easy for you but you only ever describe key steps and most would be lost very quickly

Why not prepare a proper tutorial?q

Will have a go

Anyway here's the END result -- device is an external 1TB NVME SSD type in a USBC adapter so fast enough.

1) the OS'es

2) the Current version after update

The other installations are still on the previous version.

E.G

The Registry key - after update it gets set back to "1" again by Windows

I'll try and detail it later

All you need is a basic free macrium system (to image an existing install) -- other imaging programs might work but I'm only putting down here what I used. Plus a Windows install iso (if not a member of insider -- uupdump is a good source of latest iso - and a running booted Windows install system on an INTERNAL device.

Off for an early Lunch and beer -- want to watch this afternoon's Snooker semi final later but I'll describe the steps in simple words ASAP. No need for Hasleo or other 3rd party convoluted and paid for apps.

Added :

Here's the update starting for another OS on the WintoGO drive -- after the reg edit.

Cheers
jimbo

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