Run windows from usb flash drive

After successfully formated the USB drive, select the installation mode, then click "Next". Step 8. Step 9.

It takes some time to install. Step Windows 10 normal installation starts up and you have to complete all the installation steps. After that, you can install programs, copy files, etc. Home Store Support. How to install Windows 10 to an external hard drive as portable Windows 10? How to clone Windows 10 to an external hard drive as portable Windows 10?

Click the browse button to find it, select the operating system you want to install, then click Next. Next, you'll be asked to select your hard drive and choose the system and boot partitions. You can find more information about this here , but with a USB hard drive you should just be able to select the first partition as system and the second partition as boot, as shown above. Make sure your drive is formatted as NTFS.

When you click next, the installation will begin. I found it only took a half hour or so, though your mileage may vary depending on the speed of your hard drive.

That's it! It's actually a very quick and easy process, and when it's done, you can start running your portable installation on whatever computer you want. To do so, just plug it in, restart the computer, and boot from the drive just like you would a CD or flash drive on my computer, that meant pressing F11 at boot and choosing the drive from a list. The first time it starts, it'll install the necessary drivers and take awhile to boot, after which you can set up your machine just like you would a new Windows 8 PC.

You may have to manually adjust some things like screen resolution, but once you're done, you can shut it down, move it to another computer, and run it from there. You will have to repeat this process every time you move from one PC to another. Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".

Les Pounder. Topics Windows. Operating Systems. See all comments And how activation will work then? Microsoft Account? Krotow said:. That's strange because Microsoft software is supposed to be keyed to the motherboard Alvar Miles Udell said:. I tried this on a gb PNY drive, and have some questions Does that mean that any machine I try to run the Win11 portable version on must have the same specs required for installing it on a computer??

I'm going to wipe the USB drive and try again to see if I missed something. Advice is welcome! Many Thanks!