Windows 8 To Go - Setup on a USB Flash Drive or USB Disk

How to Setup "Windows 8 To Go" on a USB Flash Drive or USB Disk in any Windows 7 and Windows 8​

   Information

This tutorial will show you how to manually setup Windows 8 To Go from any Windows 7 or Windows 8 (except Windows 8 RT) to be able to install and run Windows 8 from a USB flash drive or external USB disk. The procedure for the USB stick is discussed in Chapter A, the procedure for the USB attached disk is shown in Chapter B.

You should expect the whole process to take about 3 hours elapsed time if you do not have the WAIK on your system and about 1 hour if the WAIK is installed on your system.

If you install on a stick, it is very important to choose a fast USB stick of at least 16GB size. For the USB attached disk it is preferable to use a USB3 attachment, but USB2 should also work. In addition, you need a program to create a virtual CD and the Windows 8 .iso. The rest is done in Command Prompt.

For more information and details about Windows To Go workspaces, see: Windows To Go: Feature Overview

   Note

Those of you who have an Enterprise edition of Windows 8, you can also explore this option which is built into the Enterprise edition.

How to Create a "Windows To Go" Workspace on a USB Flash Drive in Windows 8 Enterprise

   Tip

It is highly recommended to use a USB 3.0 flash drive or disk. Otherwise it will run like a snail from it.

Chapter A - Installation on a stick


Step 1 - Check the speed of your USB stick


To measure the speed of your stick I recommend Atto Disk Benchmark. It will produce a benchmark result like this picture.




It is the example of a 32GB USB2 stick that is not very fast. Especially the 4K read/write speeds are pretty slow. It is important to focus on the 4K size because that is the blocksize that the system uses most of the time. The large blocksizes are unimportant.

Loading the system (appr. 600MB to 1GB) at boot time will take over 3 minutes at a read speed of 4.7MB/sec. But, since there are also other activities going on at this time, the boot is even longer.A stick with characteristics like this one is not recommended.





This is a USB3 stick which runs Windows 8 fluently. The initial system setup still takes a bit more time than on a fast disk, but it is not really out of the ordinary.

On this stick I have loaded the 64bit Windows 8 and I am very pleased with both the boot time and the execution of programs and system facilities.


Step 2 - Download the WAIK and extract the imagex file

If you do not have the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) on your system, then you have to download from this Microsoft site. This will be a bit lengthy because the WAIK is 1.7GB - figure a 2-hour download.

When you are done downloading the KB3AIK_EN.iso file, mount this .iso, open and run the StartCD.exe file to install WAIK on your system.



Then you have to copy the imagex.exe. You find that in C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools. There is a 32bit version and a 64bit version.





You choose 32bit when you install a 32bit version of Windows 8 on your stick - 64bit when you install the 64bit version. Copy the one that corresponds to your Windows 8 .iso to the desktop. You can copy it to any other folder, but then you have to change the path in the installation command that we will run later in Command Prompt.

I have tried both the 32bit version (on the slow USB2 stick) and the 64bit version (on the fast USB3 stick). Both work as far as I can tell although there is a significant difference in performance.


Step 3 - Mount the Win8 .iso in a virtual BD ROM

We first have to create a virtual BD ROM with theVirtual Clone Drive Program. Download, install and run this program. It is very simple. When you start the program, you get this window. Just click OK and you are done.

You then go to Computer and you find your BD ROM.

Note: If you are working in Windows 8, you can mount the .iso directly from File Explorer. Just right click on the .iso and you will find a mount option. See: ISO Images - Mount or Unmount






To mount the .iso in the BD ROM, follow the instructions in the next picture. Make sure you remember the drive letter of the BD ROM (in my case 'H:') because you will need that later.







Step 4 - Prepare your USB stick

We now have to define a primary active partition on the USB stick. For that we open an elevated Command Prompt (run as administrator). Type or paste each of the following commands (one by one) and hit Enter after each command.

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your stick in List disk)
Clean
Create partition primary
Format fs=ntfs quick
Assign
Active
Exit

Your stick is now ready for the installation of Windows 8.


Step 5 - Install Windows 8 on the stick

This is very easy now with a command in Command Prompt. It may take a little while to transfer the whole system, so be patient. The Command is:

"C:\Users\Your Name\Desktop\imagex.exe" /apply H:\sources\install.wim 1 F:\

Your Name is the name of your system. H: is the letter of my BD ROM (step 3). If your BD ROM has another letter, you have to change that accordingly. F: is the drive letter of my stick (step 4). Here you also have to replace it if your stick is on another letter.

As last step you have to run a command to install the boot files. If you are installing on a Windows 7 system, use this command. You have to be aware that this installs a Win7 BCD which works but is slower than the Win8 UEFI BCD.

bcdboot F:\windows /s F:

If you are installing on a Windows 8 system, use this command below. This is the preferred BCD because it is faster for boot and shutdown. You can rerun this command in a Win8 system even if you already installed the Win7 BCD in a Win7 system. It will 'upgrade' the BCD to the Win8 (UEFI) level.

bcdboot F:\windows /s F: /f ALL

Here again F: is the letter for my stick which you may have to adjust.


Step 6 - Run Windows 8 from your USB stick

You are done with the installation and can now run Windows 8 off your stick. For that you have to change the boot sequence in the BIOS pointing at the USB stick as first boot device.

I run the stick version on my laptop and have made the USB #1 in the boot sequence. That way it loads Windows 8 from the stick when the stick is plugged in and Windows 7 from the SSD when there is no Windows 8 stick.

As I said earlier, a USB stick is no SSD - although the technology is similar. So be patient, especially with the initial setup where the system has to do a lot of write operations which are slow on a stick. But once the system is in full swing, it is quite some fun.

Warning: In Windows 7, I usually keep my bootmgr on the C: partition. With that setup I had some problems running Windows 8 from the stick. Each time it would corrupt my bootmgr. I then created a separate 400MB partition and moved the bootmgr there. That seems to cure the problem.

Chapter B - Installation on a USB attached disk


The procedure is very similar to what I described for the USB stick with a few exceptions.

Step 1 - Check the speed of the USB attached disk

This is the HDD I run in a USB3 open enclosure. It is a 5400RPM disk that I had recovered from my laptop when I installed the SSD.

The R/W speeds at the 4K blocksize are very similar to my USB3 stick. The R/W speed at the bigger blocksizes is slower because the disk can only spin so fast.

Performance wise it felt slower than the performance on the USB3 stick but was still very acceptable.






Step 2 - Download the WAIK and extract the imagex file

This step is exactly the same as described for the stick.

Step 3 - Mount the Win8 .iso in a virtual BD ROM

This step is exactly the same as described for the stick. Make sure you apply the correct device letters for the BD ROM and the HDD.

Step 4 - Prepare your USB disk

Here I went a different route. I used Partition Wizardon my Windows 7 system to define a primary active partition on the HDD. That is easier than working with Command Prompt on a multi partition disk.

Note: There have been reports of problems when using Partition Wizard - although I did not encounter any problems myself. The report was that the final system did not boot. In such a case you might want to go back and use Command Prompt as the safer method.

Step 5 - Install Windows 8 on the disk

That is again the same procedure as for the stick. I did the installation step on my Windows 7 system but copied the BCD on my Windows 8 in Virtual Box.

Step 6 - Run Windows 8 from your USB disk

Change the boot sequence in the BIOS to boot from USB and off you go. The setup of Windows 8 took appr. 20 minutes (in the USB3 enclosure). During that setup, there is one reboot where you have to change the boot sequence again - else the system will boot into the first boot device it finds which is probably your default OS. When that was done, operation was as one would expect from a slow HDD.

I then tried it on my desktop in an eSata enclosure. The system first made some automatic adjustments for the different hardware. Then it ran flawlessly. The performance was about the same as from the USB3 enclosure. But both are slower than my USB3 stick.

If you have a USB disk with 20 to 25GB of free space lying around, it is certainly an alternative to run the Windows 8 CP from that. If nothing else, it is a lot of fun making the installation and seeing that it works.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Create a "Windows To Go" Workspace on a USB Flash Drive in Windows 8 Enterprise
• How to Enable or Disable Store on Windows To Go Workspaces
• How to Hide or Unhide Drives from Host Computer on "Windows To Go" Workspace
• How to Create a Bootable USB or DVD with a Windows 8 ISO
• How to Mount or Unmount ISO images in Windows 8
• How to Enable or Disable Hibernate in "Windows To Go" Workspace
• How to Enable or Disable Sleep in "Windows To Go" Workspace
• Enable or Disable Always Automatically Boot PC from USB Drive in Windows To Go Startup Options
• How to Create a Windows To Go Startup Options Shortcut in Windows 8 and 8.1

 

[alphanumeric]

Right, Macrium does not deal with flash drives. They confirmed that to me in an email. Someone said that Acronis would image flash drives (and I guess restore them), But I have never explored that.

I use this tool ti image and restore flash drives.
alex's coding playground

It doesn't see my WTG USB hard drive, even if I assign it drive letters.

 

[SIW2]

Aomei Backupper will image flash drives. I am doing it right now.

New free version here:FREE Backup software for Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 R2, 2012

 

[whs]

Right, Macrium does not deal with flash drives. They confirmed that to me in an email. Someone said that Acronis would image flash drives (and I guess restore them), But I have never explored that.

I use this tool ti image and restore flash drives.
alex's coding playground

Will that let me transfer the install that's on the USB hard drive to the USB thumb drive?

Not sure. I once went from thumb drive to SSD but never in the other direction. But it might because it is essentially a bare metal copy.

 

[alphanumeric]

I'm on a new track so to speak. The WTG flash drive has to show up as fixed not removable. I'm looking at some utilities that will make them look like a fixed disk to windows. I have some domestic duties to attend to so it will be a while before I get to try this out. I will also look at the other utilities posted thanks guys.

 

[alphanumeric]

Aomei Backupper will image flash drives. I am doing it right now.

New free version here:FREE Backup software for Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 R2, 2012

Ok, I've been playing around with this a bit. If I boot from my WTG drive it will see the two partitions, System Reserved and the OS partition. I tried a clone disk first. I could boot from the thumb drive but got a Something happened : ( BSOD. Looking at the thumb drive there was only one partition on it. I started over and did a clone partition. I did the system reserved first then the OS partition. It wouldn't boot at all. Looking at it in Disk Management I keep getting an error on the second partition, it keep prompting me to refresh disk management. There was no description for partition 2 either. I had to use disk part to remove all the partitions. Aomei was also throwing up a failed to assign a disk letter to the drive error right at the end of the clone. I think I'm going to give the one WHS posted a second try. This time I'll boot from the WTG drive. I'll likely give Aomei one more go too. Fooling Windows into thinking it a fixed disk looks to be a little more involved than I thought so that's on the back burner for now.

 

[Edwin]

@ alphanumeric:
I'm trying this right now, is this the software you have?:

View attachment 41107

 

[alphanumeric]

@ alphanumeric:
I'm trying this right now, is this the software you have?:

View attachment 41107

No mine is the backup manager, it doesn't look anything like that. I'll check it out though. My only concern is will the WTG created with a utility like that be legit and work like my official version created in Windows 8.1 Enterprise. I don't want to have activation issues down the road is all. That's why I've been trying clone my current install to my thumb drive.

 

[alphanumeric]

OK, just tried the Windows To Go Creator option in the Aomei Partition Assist Standard Edition. It see's my USB thumb drive and list's it as an option in the "Select a USB Device" drop down menu. When I select it and click Proceed it prompts with a "Please plug a USB drive to your computer first then click refresh". Did that too but always get the same pop up to plug in a USB drive. I think at this point I'm going to put this on the back burner for a while. I suffer from chronic back and neck pain and just had a major flair up. My pain meds make it hard to concentrate some times so I'll go at this again when I'm feeling better. I'll post back if I do manage to get this to work.

 

[Roe5685]

Forgive me for a fundamental lack of understanding but how do i create the windows iso image?
It seems to be implied that you are supposed to click on imagex in amd64 but that does not work for me.
I am using 8.1 windows pro.

 

[whs]

Forgive me for a fundamental lack of understanding but how do i create the windows iso image?
It seems to be implied that you are supposed to click on imagex in amd64 but that does not work for me.
I am using 8.1 windows pro.

You buy a Windows license and an installation CD (or a download). Then you have the iso.

Note that this tutorial was written during the time of the Windows 8 Beta where you did not need a seperate license key. But now you do need a seperate key if you want to use this approach.

 

[Roe5685]

more on Windows 8 to go A Summary of Attempts to Date.

Thank you for your most informative input on "Win 8 To Go" using Win 8.1 Pro.

It would seem the situation is that:
1.) There is no windows 8 Iso as the first entry suggests & that iso's don't go with Win 8 to go.
2. Rather there is the Wim file which is sort of like an Iso. The first entry used a tiny one made by others.
3.) I am looking to use a large one to have a reasonably sized Win 8.1 Drive on my stick. You have to create the large wim file yourself.
3.) In looking at the various posts to date I see that:
One idea to create a large Wim file is: use GImageX - AutoItScript which produces a large wim file. I tried to create a C: drive Wim but no success. I then tried the example which was c:\program files. This worked but then I could NOT pass the next job which was to add the boot files.
Maybe you and others here could work out a method?
4.) I then looked at another idea which gets you the new darling exe "DISM" file by a very clever trick. The Dism exe creates and loads up for you the proper large Wim file. Perhaps others can perfect this method. Apparently you need two flash drives. I did not try it. See DISM.exe Replaces ImageX.exe - My Thoughts On IT?
5.) I have decided to bite the bullet and use the ADK. It involves a lot of disk space and downloading. I will advise the method if successful. See to get started: WinPE: Create USB Bootable drive

Thanks again for getting me on the correct paths.

Roe5685

 

[Roe5685]

Further info on using this tread to make a windows to go flash drive.

I tried the traditional method outlined by the first person i.e. the presenter.

everything went fine until the last step. here the creating the image on the flash drive failed in the first few seconds as follows:

after saying at the command line "Applying Progress" it said Error and Error restoring image and Access is denied.
It hung up on \Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.BingFinance_2013 etc etc a Directory.
The parent director \WindowsApps is a hidden directory and I cannot change the attributes.

Perhaps there is a method of creating a script file so the program making the flash drive can ignore these files?

Please help me on this.

Roe5685

 

[Essenar]

I can't get this to boot for the life of me:

Patriot Xpress 128GB USB 3.0 drive (around 120mb/second speed, pretty quick).
I follow the process to a T. Pulled wim file from Windows 8.1 Pro ISO, formatted drive with NTFS, copied over imagex from the cab file, copied the Windows 8 files to the USB drive and then successfully copied the boot files to the flash drive using bcd.

I did this all from Windows 7 Home Premium 64. The drive works fine but when I try to boot from USB, I get the blue Windows logo and infinite spinning wheel. 40 minutes and the light on the flash drive doesn't even blink once. Plain and simple, it's not accessing the drive or doing ANYTHING. It's NOT my USB speed. The drive is fast. It's not my installation steps, I followed them precisely. For some reason, it's just not booting passed the splash screen.

And it seems like the person who wrote this tutorial and everyone who does this, doesn't seem to test their USB stick on a variety of machines. The machine I tried it on is a Precision M3800. So I guess I have to try a different method to get it going because I don't think this method works for Dell computers. And yes I set it to boot from USB, hence me getting to the Windows 8 splash screen. And no Linux is not a good option for me. I need native Windows 8 with hardware support. I tried this method and the method that uses WinToUSB and they both get me to the same step, basically it won't boot.

 

[whs]

I am really sorry that you could not get it to work but I have no clue why your installation failed.

I ran my systems on a Dell XPS 8300 and a Dell Inspiron 530 without any problems.

 

[ecurb]

(Repeat from How-to-Geek forum)

Wow. Works real well. I downloaded the 90 day trial Windows 8.1 Enterprise 32bit and put it onto a SanDisk Extreme 32GB USB3 (22 of 30GB free). It booted up quickly (as quick as a hard disk at least) on an i3-4150+Gigabyte 1150 H81 DDR3 Mobo+8GB ram. I then shut it down and moved the stick directly over to an old Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. It then booted up as quick as it had booted XP but into Win 8.1 with reasonable working drivers for the old hardware.
This is a great tool for being able to fix/work on PCs with a full OS (e.g., malware removal, hardware checking, cloning/replacing disks, etc.).
Win 8.1 is now almost as flexible as DOS was!

Seriously, this is great. Thanks!

 

[whs]

Yeah right. This is a lot of fun. I will do one again when we get the Windows 9 trials.

 

[ecurb]

As I posted earlier the USB to Go worked great on various hardware and on my first UTG build of the flash drive. I then proceeded to break my flash drive (left it on a PC as I moved it) and so ordered the exact same flash drive a SanDisk Extreme 32GB to replace it.

Long story short, the new usb flash drive with UTG won't boot. Goes into the boot up circle of death ;-) on every PC I tried. Rebuilt it multiple times. Used both imagex and DISM. Formatted the entire drive (as opposed to quick format). Nothing. In all other ways the flash drive works just fine. Maybe there is something to "Certified for Windows USB On The Go".

I'm tempted to purchase another duplicate flash drive. But I've spent so much time trying to get this one working that I don't think I could stomach another that doesn't work.

<sigh>

 

[whs]

That's too bad. Unfortunately I have no clue what could have happened. Maybe you want to try this one instead. It's a lot of fun.

 

[ecurb]

I made one more try to get my replacement SanDisk Extreme 32GB to work booting Windows 8.1 Enterprise W8TG. I used the PWBoot program at reboot.pro. I had two options, native boot or vhd boot. I did the native boot and it again went into the boot up circle of death (CoD) just like W8TG configured as described in this thread did. (My original SanDisk Extreme did W8TG just fine until I accidentally broke the physical USB drive.)

I then tried vhd. Darn if it didn't boot right up. I'm not sure what I got with PWBoot is the same as pure W8TG but everything so far appears to work, almost. This version wouldn't boot my old Dell Inspiron laptop like my once working W8TG did -- it just did the CoD. So not a perfect solution but an acceptable interim solution until I get pure OTG working again.

CAUTION: When I tried to download pwboot using Chrome, Chrome objected and blocked the download. I then downloaded it with Explorer and ran it through a couple of virus checkers (SAS, Defender) with no complaints.

 

[whs]

Yeah, Chrome is iffy if the programs you try to download do not have the right credentials. Happened to me earlier with a pretty standard download from Bleeping Computers.