Many of you might not be knowing this feature the “Windows To Go” Feature allows you to Run your Windows operating system right from your USB Drive,i.e you just have to plug in the USB Drive onto your PC and the operating system boots itself from the USB Drive.So you can have your Windows 8 PC in your pocket and whenever and where ever you go,you can run Windows 8 y just plugging your USB Drive to any PC.
So to run the Windows 8 Developer Preview right from your USB Drive what we need beforehand is to install the Windows 8 Developer Preview on the USB Drive First. Windows8italia has created a nice tutorial to install Windows 8 on the USB Drive.
Here are Some of the Prerequisites for the Windows 8 USB : ■ First of all you would need at least a 16 GB USB Drive with USB 2.0 support(this is the minimum requirement)
■ It is highly recommended if you can avail yourself with the 32GB USB Drive with 3.0 support for seamless performance of Windows 8 Developer Preview on your PC.
■ Also make sure that you already have a system pre installed with the Windows 8 Developer Preview(either native install or even a Virtual Machine install would do).
Follow the Steps to Install Windows 8 on your USB Drive: 1. Insert or Mount the DVD/Image of Windows 8 Developer Preview on your System.
2. Download the
Windows Automated Installation Kit and install it .
3. After the installation copy the
imagex.exe file from the
C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools folder according to the system version you are running i.e either the 32 bit folder(x86) or the 64 bit folder from the above mentioned path where the file is located.Copy that file onto your Desktop.
4.Connect the USB Drive to Windows 8, format the drive with primary NTFS Partition.You can either use Disk Management in Windows or if you are familiar with Command prompt you can run the following commands from the CMD prompt(running as administrator)
■
diskpart (start the partition management tool)
■
list disk (to identify the USB depending on size)
■
select disk 1 (assuming that the USB is seen as number 1)
■
select partition 1 (assuming there is only the partition 1)
■
delete partition 1 (assuming there is only the partition 1)
■
create partition primary (we create a primary partition)
■
format fs = ntfs quick (formatted to NTFS)
■
active (we set the partition as active to be bootable)
■
exit (we leave the diskpart tool)
5. After doing all of the above steps enter the following command in the command prompt.
imagex.exe / apply D: \ sources \ install.wim 1 F: \ Things to Keep in mind while you enter the above command: ■ The
Imagex.exe path should be your Desktop path on which the file is copied as mentioned in the previous
step 3.
■ The ”
D:” mentioned in the above command corresponds to the Windows 8 DVD Drive letter or the Windows 8 Mounted Image Drive(virtual drive) letter.
■ The “
F:” is nothing but the USB Drive on which you are installing the Windows 8 Developer Preview,so make changes according to your Drive letters while installing it on your PC.
(Since the copy process is a bit slow,it would take upto an hour to complete so be patient.)
6.The final step is to copy the boot files from the installation of the Windows 8 Developer Preview,enter the following command in the command prompt(running as administrator).
bcdboot.exe F: \ windows / s F: / f ALL (The”
F:” Corrsponds to your USB Drive,so accordingly make changes in the above command).
7.Now you have successfully installed Windows 8 on your USB Drive,now you can exit the command prompt.
You can now directly Boot Windows 8 from your Windows To Go Drive on your PC,just make sure that you have set USB as your First boot device before plugging in the Drive in your System ,Enjoy Windows 8 On the Go
.
