can i install windows 10 onto a usb

I want to know if it is possible to install windows 10 onto a usb drive so that i can boot to it instead of a hard drive

I believe it is called WindowsToGo, but I haven't ever ready that it works well.

DeaconFrost said:

I believe it is called WindowsToGo, but I haven't ever ready that it works well.

WOW, fast response and thank you I will try it.

cereberus said:

This is easier

UEFI boot manager, Windows To Go Creator, All-in-One Microsoft Windows Setup software - The EasyUEFI Development Team

Download tool, use it to put iso on usb stick - that's it.

Note: you can only do legacy boot on a usb flash drive unless special wintogo drive.

Yep! Just now added Windows 7 to my USB hard drive. It has Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Windows 10 Home 32-bit. And Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit is finishing up installing after the reboot into Windows 7. It's not the fastest in the world, but it is pretty cool!

cereberus said:

How have you installed multiple versions?

Separate partitions on the USB hard drive.

cereberus said:

I was not clear - are these each legacy bios installs ie only need one partition each and how do you select which one to boot?

Yes, it is set up as MBR and legacy booting. I used the WinToUSB program. I made 3 partitions. Part 1 was the "system" partition to hold the boot files, set as active. Partition 2 was for Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. Partition 3 was for Windows 10 Home 32-bit. The first install went as expected, selected Part 1 for the system partition for the boot files, partition 2 to install the OS to.

Then when I tried to install the second OS, I originally tried the same thing, Part 1 as the system partition and part 3 to install the OS to. WinToUSB complained that there was already an OS installed. So I changed it to part 3 for both the system partition and the OS partition, and that went fine, but that set part 3 as active.

I then manually changed back to part 1 as the active partition. Booted it into Windows 10 Pro, and used BCDBOOT command to add the Windows 10 Home 32-bit to the boot menu.

I was then going to do the same thing to add Windows 7 to a 4th partition in exactly the same way, and I actually got it installed, added to the boot menu, and booted into it, but after I created a user account Windows 7 complained about not starting the login server and could load user profile. I didn't really want to mess with it too much, so I just scrapped the idea of adding Windows 7 to it.