Solved W8 to go via ext USB disk performs BETTER than my INSTALLED W8 system

[jimbo45]

Hi there
I've been running stuff all day from an old Laptop USB drive (SAMSUNG 320 GB) which I booted on to 16 GB Quad ASUS Mobo as an External USB drive (BIOS allows USB booting).

It's connected to the ASUS computer via a USB. (SATA==>USB cable to a USB2 port on the machine -- actually even via a Hub) !!.

It needed to go through "Setting up Hardware" routine -- but once booted it's been fine and runs a treat better than the W8 installation I have from an Internal SATA HDD drive.

All drives are accessible and even running a VM on it is fine (the VM is actually on the 2nd partition of the "Laptop" drive).

I suspect that my internal HDD's (probably getting long in the tooth) aren't as fast as the newer laptop drives even though the laptop drive has to go through a SATA==>USB interface.

(Same test with an SSD external drive --- No contest -- system just FLIES).

IMO MS have got this Windows to Go absolutely SPOT ON.

I'm really sorry that it will only be available in Windows Enterprise -- since a lot of people who would use this won't have access to Windows Enterprise. (TechNet and corporates can still get it).

Any MS guys out there -- PLEASE MAKE THIS AVAILABLE TO GENERAL PUBLIC (even it it's an "extra charge" feature").

I really love this tool and am actually using it in working environments quite a lot now.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[fafhrd]

It will be also available in Windows Embedded Standard 8 - as it was in WES 7 SR1 - and with even more pruning of unnecessary features than possible with WCP Windows 8 to Go (ThinPC form factor, minimal MUI, optimized USB, tablet functionality removed, etc., etc.) it should be a tiny stunner.