Windows to an external hard drive?

Question

Windows

I constantly travel between the two countries and constantly have to take my laptop with me. I was wondering if it is possible to install an operating system like Windows 10 on my 1TB external hard drive. I would be very grateful if someone who is more knowledgeable could share their thoughts on this matter. Also, are there any downsides to having your operating system stored on an external drive? Are there any nuances in choosing a hard drive for the operating system. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

get an ssd, create a bootable partition and install windows. but every time you connect to a new computer, it will pull the drivers and I admit the possibility that it will not start due to a driver failure

Answer 2

unfortunately not everything is simple. SSD or HDD doesn't matter. Windows basically does not support booting from external media.
- already mentioned Sergey , Windows To Go, this is the only legal, and relatively complete option. but you should read the review from MS https://docs.microsoft.com/ru-ru/windows/deploymen...
an important detail from this document

Windows To Go has been removed from Windows 10 version 2004 and later operating systems. This component does not support component updates and therefore does not allow you to keep the version up to date. It also requires a specific type of USB that many OEMs no longer support.

- there are bootable assemblies of Windows 10 and earlier (which is hardly interesting). but integrating the software you need into the assembly is no longer a trivial quest. let's just say you wouldn't be asking that question if it was your level, no offense :)
but the biggest annoyance is I haven't seen builds that use more than one core yet. maybe there are, I don’t follow the topic. out of sporting interest, I checked the admin assembly from Sergei Strelec - everything is in order with multi-core :)
but the software set, all the same, for admin / repair purposes. the assembly is quite popular, regularly updated, which will allow you to have a relatively fresh browser. but not the office. and nothing from serious software at all

ps how to carry a full-fledged Windows - ...

если вы курсируете между конкретными населенными пунктами, и есть возможность вставлять свой диск в настольные компьютеры, в идеале два конкретных (иначе винда быстро сойдет с ума от смены драйверов), тогда самое важное требование - одинаковый тип контроллера диска, и одинаковый режим EHCI в BIOS. это лучшее решение, можете смело возить диск с полноценной виндой. почти :). активация то будет слетать :)
удачи! :)

Answer 3

I feel that Winda lovers will throw slippers at me, but, in the end, I came to a scheme with the creation of a bootable mobile SSD. This SSD has a bootable Ubuntu. In this Ubuntu, there is libvirt + kvm on which the "portable" Windows is spinning.
In addition, L2 VPNs are configured in Ubuntu in such a way that the "portable" Windows using them is not at all aware that it is moving somewhere.
Qemu/kvm is configured to emulate the KVM-64 model processor, which is successfully emulated in hardware mode on almost all x64 processors, both from AMD and Intel.
The scheme boots/works on almost any x64 hardware (starting with Core 2 Duo, where USB 2.0 and no UEFI, and ending with a server on EPYC) with 4+ GB of RAM, but preferably, of course, at least 8 GB.
Works fast enough. More than enough for office applications.
For games and graphics, I have a special desktop, when booting on which Ubuntu automatically forwards a USB controller and discrete graphics to Windows via GPU / PCI-E pass-through.
Good luck with your experiments.

Answer 4

Windows To Go to external SSD