Windows to go -- Windows Update problem fixed

jimbo45

New Member
VIP Member
Guru
Messages
4,373
Location
Hafnarfjörður IS
Hi there.
I decided that as I had a small external surplus laptop 2.5 inch 320 GB USB drive - itself not much bigger than a USB stick (and only 2 X as expensive as a 32 GB stick) I gave it a whirl of installing the Windows to Go on this drive.

I did EXACTLY the same instructions as for a USB stick so in theory this should also work for Internal HDD's if you are doing this from a desktop and want totally separate installations.


Note that this creates ONE LARGE partition so after you've installed Windows -- use a partition manager to change the sizes.


Ensure Internet IS connected and do the updates.

The updates will download but the ist time you'll get a fail when it tries to install them.

just RETRY and it will install the downloaded updates.


I'm busy now with updating about 700 MB's worth of updates for OFFICE.


Got Photoshop CS5, Acronis, Partition manager,Winamp, VLC and even vmware work station to work. Plenty of space and much faster than an actual USB STICK but still tiny enough to be genuinely portable.

It's really a proper PORTABLE system.

Note I used a proper USB ===>SATA cable to connect the external disk to the usb slot on the computer. Fortunately one of these came with an SSD I purchased previously (Samsung) and had wondered what to do with it --lucky I never threw it away. !!

I've booted the system up on 4 different machines with no problems at all.

I'm sure that nce MS has got the bugs out of this feature it will be GREAT.

( I had to do something while watching Manchester United win again on TV - over 5 goals today !!)

One thing to experiment with -- whether the created image is "cloneable" to another drive via say Acronis or Macrium. Will try that when I've finished updating and completing the build. This will be a MEGA useful support tool for me.

I'll also try and see if its cloneable to a USB stick -- in theory it should be as well --even if I have to re-create the boot data with the bcdboot command.
Partition size used after "bog standard install" and W8 updates but before any applications installed is 13.4 GB.


Cheers
jimbo
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
Back
Top