On the upper side of performance, running Windows 10 To Go from a 32GB USB 3.1 flash drive was quite usable for general computing/basic productivity on an old desktop and a modern laptop. 'In general this feature is reliable and efficient when roaming between PCs of widely varying hardware configurations,' the company says, and that's a 'generally fair' statement based on our observations from testing. This profile is remembered and automatically selected on subsequent boot-ups. Microsoft's To Go documents note that a process called 'respecialize' identifies and loads drivers for a specific machine during the first boot-up, along with disabling drivers that aren't required.

Older systems that originally sold with Vista or XP may work, too, but will have reduced processing power and slower USB ports, meaning they might not meet the minimum hardware requirements, listed below: This feature is intended as a convenient way for workers to carry their corporate environments with them, but having your own copy of Windows on a thumb drive could be handy for backup purposes, too, or if you frequently use public machines that lack your preferences/applications or that have a restricted OS.įor a long time this was a neat thing you could do with many Linux distros (we plan to cover Linux Live on a separate article soon), but barring driver complications and hardware limitations, a Windows To Go drive should boot from 'most' computers.īooting a Windows 10 'To Go' drive on a modern machine that shipped with Windows 10 is likely to work fine, and because performance if often of the essence, a USB 3.0 port is always desirable.

Did you know that a full copy of Windows can be installed and run from a USB drive? Microsoft introduced 'Windows To Go' with Windows 8 Enterprise and has continued supporting the feature in Windows 10, which can be kept on a pen drive in your pocket as a portable operating system.

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