Can I boot windows 7 from a USB WITHOUT installing it?

Question

I'm considering making my Linux PC able to dual boot, but frankly don't have the storage or patience for that. Can I make a portable version via USB drive, boot that, and not install it? Or will it overwrite my hard drive and install Windows?

Answer 1

(Friendly warning: don't do this on your daily driver! Use a VM or boot from a separate hard disk dedicated to preparing this.)

All you have to do to boot a Windows 7 installation directly from USB is set the following registry values

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"BootDriverFlags"=dword:00000006

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PnP]
"PollBootPartitionTimeout"=dword:00007530

and run Sysprep with the Shutdown option (located in \Windows\System32\Sysprep\sysprep.exe)

You can now clone this prepared volume onto a USB hard drive or flash disk and boot it from USB.

It may also be possible to omit Sysprep, but it will probably involve messing with drivers/registry.

I wish people would do some research before posting "It can't be done" or "use something else" answers...

Source: This was figured out by reading this webpage (most of the steps there are unnecessary): https://rmprepusb.com/tutorials/047-how-to-install-windows-vista-7-svr2k8-onto-a-usb-drive-or-any-partition/

Answer 2

No, you can't.

The "Windows to Go" feature is available only in Enterprise editions of Windows 8 or newer and currently only supported in Windows 10.

Windows - typically and legally - cannot be installed in removable media.

Answer 3

As I side suggestion (if this is an option for you) you can always turn your Linux PC into a windows PC and boot Linux from your USB instead since Linux distros highly configurable. I run Arch from my persistent USB on a daily basis.

Answer 4

You can try to adapt the Windows PE environment to do what you need.

Note:

Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) 2.0 is a minimal Win32 operating system with limited services, built on the Windows Vista kernel. It is used to prepare a computer for Windows installation, to copy disk images from a network file server, and to initiate Windows Setup.

Windows PE is not designed to be the primary operating system on a computer, but is instead used as a standalone preinstallation environment and as an integral component of other setup and recovery technologies

WinBuilder gets around some of the Win PE restrictions by allowing you to add more components to the USB drive.

Instructions here http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/winbuilder-win7pe-se-tutorial say that the core requirements are

1. Windows 7 x86 (32bit) or x64 (64bit) media (you need to own this)
2. WinBuilder (to customise and add features not normally in Win PE) http://WinBuilder.net/ which redirects to http://reboot.pro/forum/22/ It’s just a single little EXE that can be used to download the projects/distros/tools you need
3. Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 (WAIK) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=696dd665-9f76-4177-a811-39c26d3b3b34&displaylang=en This will be an ISO file named KB3AIK_EN.iso
4. Driverpacks http://driverpacks.net/driverpacks/latest These driver packs make it nice and easy to support a lot of hardware with very little work or hunting around for drivers. Not all of the packs need to be downloaded, it depends on the work you plan to do, but I’d recommend at least the Chipset, LAN, WLAN and Mass Storage driver packs.

You could either try out Winbuilder and click things yourself till it works, or follow the method that first link describes.

Alternatively, BartPE and UBCD4Win give windows environments based on Vista/Win7 without too much fuss, but are more focussed on fixing your PC than being a usable operating system.