How to create a Windows To Go USB drive in Windows 8 [step-by-step]

To create a Windows To Go USB drive in Windows 8 you will need a 32GB or larger capacity USB storage device — you could also use an external USB hard drive –, a Windows 8 PC to create the ‘TO GO’ drive, the Windows 8 ISO file, and finally you are going to need a copy of Imagex.exe that you can easily download from the Microsoft Download Center — The Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (this is about 1.7GB download).  

Alright, before we get started let’s talk a little bit about Windows To Go (a.k.a Portable Workspace). This is a new feature in Windows 8 that is target to enterprise customers, but anyone can use it, and it allows to install a full copy of Windows 8 into a USB drive (and this is not just a stripped down version, this is the real deal) which you can then boot from, taking the corporate environment anywhere. This feature is going to be useful in many scenarios like when working from home, shared computer or any other remote location, or contractors and vendors won’t have to spend hours setting up a new computer environment, and many other scenarios.

If you would like to learn more, I would recommend you to check out these two previous articles:

• Windows To Go: Run Windows 8 from a USB drive [Video]
• Portable Workspace: Ready to run Windows 8 from a USB device?

How to create a Windows To Go USB drive — The process

1  To start you need to make sure that the USB drive is plugged in, then you need to open the Windows command prompt as administrator. To do this, go to Start, in the search box type cmd, right-click it in and select Run as Administrator. This is necessary because Windows To Go needs a specific partition setup in order to work correctly.

2  In the command prompt type the following and press Enter:

3  You’ll now need to list all the available disks on your system, type the following command – your USB drive should now be listed and press Enter:

4  Select your future Windows To Go USB drive by typing the next command and press Enter:

5  Next you need to clean the partition, so type:

6  Now is the time to create the new partition, type the following command:

7  Next, select and format the boot partition that you just created by entering this command:

8  Configure the partition to be active by typing:

9  To finish with Diskpart just type the following and press Enter:

10  Now to the fun part, mount the Windows 8 ISO file by double clicking it, look for the install.wim file that it should be in the \sources\ folder and copy it to the folder where you have placed the Imagex.exe.

11  Detect the USB drive letter and run the following command from the folder that has the Imagex.exe and now the install.wim:

12  When the above step is finished, you’ll need to configure the boot record in the Windows To Go USB drive. In the command prompt (with the administrative level) type the following:

And this was the last step, now you have just created a Windows To Go USB drive, the next step would be to test it out. Good Luck and have fun!

Final note, make sure that your computer is configured to boot from the device you are about to use, i.e., USB drive. Also the first time that Windows 8 doesn’t need to be activated– Windows To Go starts, it will take a little bit of time, because this is the first time booting from that particular machine, then next time it will boot faster, and if you are asked to enter the product key, just click Skip.

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