A newbie question on Windows To Go

I know WinToGo is applicable only to Enterprise version................ officially.

My question is :
If I have win 10 installed to a certified USB ( yes, I know I can use a non-certified one with limitations), I can take it to any Windows computer, plug it in, and presto........ Win 10 at your service ?

If so, why would anyone want to upgrade his/her precious reliable OS to Win 10 ?

I am sure I have misunderstood a lot on this subject.
Someone please correct and enlighten me.

Thank you.

You won't get anywhere near the performance of Windows 10 that's running on an SSD. You also could be space-limited, even with a large flash drive.

I have to ask though...you seem to hint that Windows 10 isn't reliable. Windows 7 was very reliable for me. Windows 8.1 was very reliable for me. Windows 10 is every bit as reliable, or more, than any previous version. In fact, it's been so reliable and performs so well, I've begun rolling it out to across my company.

Sure you can. You can install any Windows version on any USB.

If you plug it into another PC it will not be licensed though as the hardware has changed (unless you have volume license). You also can't upgrade it and it is slower.

lx07 said:

Sure you can. You can install any Windows version on any USB.

If you plug it into another PC it will not be licensed though as the hardware has changed (unless you have volume license). You also can't upgrade it and it is slower.

But Win 10 will run albeit slow and not upgradable ?

davidhk said:

But Win 10 will run albeit slow and not upgradable ?

Yes, it works fine. I do it. I use a partition of a USB hard drive but it is the same procedure.

You can use the (pretty brief) powershell steps here if you don't have enterprise Windows To Go Step by Step - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki


Because I've only used it on my normal PC it activated automatically with the digital entitlement but I'm certain this would break if I tried it elsewhere.

lx07 said:

Yes, it works fine. I do it. I use a partition of a USB hard drive but it is the same procedure.

You can use the (pretty brief) powershell steps here if you don't have enterprise Windows To Go Step by Step - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki
. Because I've only used it on my normal PC it activated automatically with the digital entitlement but I'm certain this would break if I tried it elsewhere.

Thank you.
I have the Howtogeek tutorial.
Yours appears to be hell of a lot more in details and perhaps complicated.

DeaconFrost said:

I have to ask though...you seem to hint that Windows 10 isn't reliable. .

I am just merely mirroring the sentiments from people having issues one way or the other using Windows 10.
Whether it is because of the users' ignorance which causes the issues is another topic.

My 2 laptops running Win 10 have no issue at all.

The Howtogeek tutorial (if you mean this How to Create a Windows To Go USB Drive Without the Enterprise Edition) is missing 2 steps.

It doesn't set SanPolicy to 4 (which stops you accessing local disks) and it doesn't disable recovery environment. It will work without these steps though but be careful not to write anything to your normal boot disks especially if you have fast boot or hibernation enabled.

Why not give it a try anyway? If you install Enterprise evaluation you'll not have worry about activation.