I want to wipe my hard drive and install another OS, but there are still some programs that only work on Windows. I found out about Windows to go and I was wondering if it could be good for basic tasks and some small games.
Yes, but......Windows to go is a full windows installation, but is usually installed on a thumb drive (slow) or on a hard drive in a USB enclosure. On a modern system with usb3 an a decent CPU and adequate memory, it will perform quite well. On an older system with usb2, and a single or 2 core cpu, it can be painful to use. I would instead suggest that you use a virtual drive if you have a fairly new system. On an old, slow system, dual booting might be a better option. I use W2Go mostly in a support environment. If I have a system that I want to check out with out starting the native windows environment, I'll use W2Go. I can examine the entire system using familiar Windows tools. But as I said, it can be painful on an old system.
I don't know if W2Go is going to feasible in the future. I understand that Microsoft is dropping the feature, and I haven't investigated if it is still possible to create, or if it will have a valid license.
Last edited by Garyw; 26 May 2021 at 09:38. Reason: More thoughts...
You mentioned a different OS, I have Linux Mint on a Desktop, can use its USB Image Writer to create an 8GB or larger Bootable LiveUSB drive to carry with me when visiting clients 'just in case'. It uses the downloaded .iso file as the Source. It has the same features as the installed version. I have added a Mahjong program to it using Software Manager so I look around in the many options to see if something I need is there like LibreOffice, a lot are free. Programs like Firefox and LibreOffice are cross-platform, work on Windows, Linux, and some on Mac OS X or the newer macOS.
If you are going to be using Windows 2 Go, I would suggest an SSD in a USB-C enclosure.
Windows to Go is no longer supported by MS.
However, you can pretty much do the same thing using Rufus to create a bootable external usb drive.
However, bear in mind that although Rufus (and other tools) call it "Windows To Go", it is not a full implementation of the MS atandard. The MS WIndows To Go implementation has certain safeguards built in so if you accidentally disconnected the drive, it would not crash the PC. I have heard claims Rufus implementation is supposed to do similar but I have never tested it.
The biggest drawback with using Windows on an external drive is that upgrades did not work (maybe that has changed).
So (in my opinion) Windows To Go is not robust enough to use as a permanent choice.
Replace your DVD drive with a drive caddy. Buy a small (128G - US$30) SSD and install Win 10 and the other OS.
On the caddy install the HDD to store data only.
Universal Optibay 2nd HDD Caddy 12.7mm SATA3.0 2.5" SSD CD DVD to HDD Case Enclosure CD-ROM ODD - Newegg.com
I think this caddy was designed only for older model Lenovo T-series (and maybe W-series). I used to have a T530, with this second bay. Good for a second battery, an HDD, a DVD drive, and maybe even once a floppy drive.
I was sorely disappointed when I got a T560 in 2018 where there was no second drive bay. Now I have to schlep around a 4 TB HDD inside a USB case. Lots less convenient when you are doing a plane trip in "peasant class." (economy). Of course, the toffs in business and first class have all the tray table space they need.
Does your laptop has a ODD (CD/DVD)?
If it does you can replace it with a drive caddy. There are two types of laptops ODDs: 9.5mm or 12.7mm high.
You must buy a caddy of the same high .
2nd HDD Caddy | Newegg.com
The Sony Vaio I'm using right now has a 120G SSD and a 1T HDD installed on a 12.7mm Caddy.
Hi there
@Dule74
it works great provided you have it preferably on an SSD device connected to computer via SATA-> USB3 / USB3.1 / USBC device -- you can certainly get speeds faster than resident HDD's if you are still using spinners as HDD's. Even faster if you get NVme ->USB adapters.
You don't need any HDD caddies etc -- simply the appropriate SATA->USB adapter unless using NVMe2 chips. Older 256 GB SSD devices are so cheap these days its worth using these as Win2Go devices -- I often test out Windows using these after first creating a VM.
I've got a few post on this - including converting a Windows Virtual Machine on Linux to a physical machine to a Windows2Go system.
There's a few posts on the board so just do a search under my user ID .
Cheers
jimbo
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