I don't know about windows to go. But rufus? Isn't it just writing images to usb drives? Sounds like you're looking for the dd command. You can write images with
dd if=/path/to/my/image of=/dev/[insert device here] status=progress
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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I'll look into it thanks
I'm a bit confused by the question.
Do you want to write the installation files to a USB drive? There's dd, KDE ISO Image Writer, Balena Etcher, Gnome MultiWriter, etc.
Do you want to boot a full windows installation off a thumb drive? You would want to look at Ventoy or WinToUSB.
Would you want to run windows at the same time in a VM? Thats essentially what I do when I need to run a specialty windows application.
No I don't want to make a bootable USB already have a Ventoy USB drive for that. in Windows With Rufus or win to USB you can install an Windows iso as "Windows To Go" to a external drive (can be a thumb drive or better an SSD) and then boot from that drive and have functioning Windows installation on it which is also kinda portable too
Edit: typo
You don't need to do anything special. Take an NVMe or SSD and put it internally in some PC—ideally the same computer you want to use it on, for driver reasons—then install Windows on it. (Windows won't let you install to a USB device, so you have to put the drive internally in the PC.) Then take it back out, put it in an external enclosure, plug it into USB and it boots right up. (Well, as long as you know how to choose a boot device at startup or make USB a higher priority than your internal drive.)
I just did that on my laptop by taking out the Windows NVMe, putting in a new one for Linux, and then sticking the Windows NVMe in an enclosure.
Obviously, this can't work on a thumb drive, but it's not terribly inconvenient to carry around an enclosure and a cable.
(An LLM told me I should change some registry settings to make loading the USB drivers occur earlier during boot, but that doesn't make much sense. How could it boot enough to load the Registry in order to know to load the USB drivers earlier? It's already booting. But if you try this and have any troubles, I can probably figure out what Registry settings I changed. I've also done this with an M.2 SSD from one PC and booted it from a USB enclosure on a different PC, and I definitely made no registry changes then.)
got it thanks the SSD I tried this with in the first try was fairly old. I bought a new one now but it hadn't arrived yet I will try this again once it arrives
Good luck! I hope it works out for you.
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This is probably an inefficient solution, but I just did this the other day using dockur/windows as a VM and passing through the drive. It's really easy if you have docker experience.
Once the VM has installed Windows to the drive you can just boot from it as normal (whatever the VM does to Windows to make it wanna boot in a VM let's it boot off the USB)
Here's a link the docs for this: docker/windows
Let me know if you have any questions :)
Thanks I'll look into it
Just in case and I know this may sound like a duh type question and I apologize if you have already exhausted it. But you have tried installing it with wine and play on linux?
wine won't cut it for CAD software unfortunately
sorry. I figured you had tried but mentioned just in case. I was surprised when using playonlinux. I thought it would just run executables but it doing like a pho install was neat. I don't use cad software though.
It's fine I recently moved to Linux I love it gonna dual boot Windows in a separate SSD either internal or external
Windows To Go was discontinued back in 2019 so it's not really something that has been maintained or updated for a long time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go#Discontinuation
Apps like Rufus (Windows only) are still able to create that sort of boot USB but it's sort of a non supported feature, wouldn't be surprised if it just stops working one day.
On Linux Ventoy is often used for this - it does have a persistence plugin but not for Windows https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html
I haven't tested this idea, but maybe you can run a Windows VM within Linux, enable USB in it, download Rufus in it, then you can create your non-official Windows To Go boot disk that way? Could be something to try if you never find another solution.
Thanks Yes this is what I was thinking to try next if I run out of options
Ventoy supports any iso, including Windows
Yes it does and it's great but it does not support setting up "Windows to Go"
Sorry to almost have misled you
Someone already told you to use a vm. They’re right, but if you insist on booting to actual bare metal windows instead, consider devoting a handful of gigabytes to a dual boot setup. It’s really easy to do and will be much more reliable than the way out of service windows to go.
If you have a specific piece of software you need to run I may could help you figure out the vm setup for it. Windows VMs are my solution to running cad packages.
I want to dual boot but not on the same SSD it's just trouble. Separate disk and efi partition for windows is the way but my device has no more spare connectors inside. That's why I want to run windows in a external SSD connected via Thunderbolt.
As a longtime user of windows and linux dual booted from the same disk, former user of windows to go and current user of the windows pre installation environment who uses virtualized cad programs and has moved away from bare metal windows in the last two years: It sounds like you could be moving down the wrong path.
Windows to go will absolutely be more trouble than it’s worth. I used it for years before moving to vms and the pe or just dual booting for when I absolutely had to have bare metal (as it turns out on haswell + chips this is almost never). It was a headache then and it’s only gotten worse. If you’re not completely confident that you can be your own tech support without the help of the internet and successfully force device driver installation then I don’t recommend it.
You really don’t need to worry about windows causing problems because it’s installed on the same disk as linux. The bootloader is extremely easy to repair and there are very few windows updates that caused that problem in the past.
If you will not dual boot, give serious consideration and the ol’ college try to kvm virtualization. If you have thunderbolt then the device you’re using absolutely supports the x86 extensions to make kvm work perfectly.
Again, I have done what you’re doing and I think you could be making an error by pursuing usb boot over bare metal dual boot or virtualization.
I'm sure windows activation will complain, but you should be able to dd your windows partition (or disk) over to the external disk, set up a bootloader (windows can do this, but something like grub or syslinux I know would work to hand off to the windows bootloader)
I don't know anything about bitlocker stuff, probably needs to be decrypted before this can work.
That's what I would try, even though it's not wrapped up in a single tool.
I have never used Bitlocker before and I'll keep it off. Also yes some else mentioned I can just use dd I'll look into it thanks
You can use something like virt-manager to mount your USB as a hard drive within the VM then install it from an ISO file.
I would recommend something like Tiny11 for this, but make sure to install the appropriate drivers for your hardware first (or at least have the installers ready for when you reboot).
Why not just run Windows in a VM?
You could just pull your drives, install a nvme and install windows. Then pull that drive and put it in an enclosure. Then choose that drive when booting. Idk if that works on modern windows but the install then pulling the drive used to work on 7-
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I don't think you need to involve Linux at all if you boot the official windows installer. I would just install the SSD as the only drive internally and install to it, then put it back in its enclosure.
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Boot to WinPE and use Rufus to create one maybe? Not sure if WTG still works though.
I personally never used WTG. If you're planning to use this across multiple machines/hw configs, I don't think the normal windows can handle it as you'd have to install the correct drivers every time. I recall there being some hardware profile thing at bootup but not so sure. (that was XP)
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I used Rufus to make Linus boot USBs for AGES
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