The first time I used an operating system on a USB drive was when installing Ubuntu. It was fascinating to try out the operating system and the tools available without even installing it on the system drive. Windows did not support such a feature and the concept of creating a portable operating system was distant until Windows to Go arrived. It is not possible to try it yet. windows 11 before installation, but you can create a portable installation of the operating system on a USB drive or SSD/HDD.
My SSD didn’t work, so I used a SanDisk USB drive to create a portable Windows 11 installation with Rufus. I tested it on my main system and a couple of other machines, and the results were very different from my expectations.
Building the portable Windows drive was not easy
Not all USB drives work
A couple of years ago, I tried to create a Windows 11 portable drive using the WinToUSB tool. It took me 4-5 hours to end up in despair. Since then Rufous I started offering Windows to Go features, I was curious to create one again. I have a spare SATA SSD that I wanted to use for this project. In Rufus, you need to check the “Show USB Drives” option to select the USB SSD as the Windows 11 portable installation drive.
However, Rufus was unable to write the file to disk and after repeated attempts I gave up. I even changed Windows 11 versions to 24H2 but that didn’t work either. I had a 32GB SanDisk USB drive lying around and Rufus didn’t throw any errors when creating a portable Windows 11 installation on it. The next step was to boot the disk for the first time.
Setting up Windows takes a while
OOBE setting delays everything
Since it is not the default boot drive, I needed to open the boot menu and select the USB drive from there. The Windows 11 icon appeared after a while and for about 20 minutes the progress icon kept spinning. I signed in to my Microsoft account and set it up as a new system. After a brief fight with the endless pop-ups that Microsoft inserts into the OOBE settings page, I completed the steps. The USB drive took its time to prepare the PC for the first desktop boot.
When loading an operating system from a USB drive, it’s wise to keep your expectations modest. I knew the OS wouldn’t load like it does on my NVMe driveand it took about 3-4 minutes to load the lock screen. The initial animations when entering the PIN seemed unresponsive, but were not unusable. It didn’t look bad visually or grainy at low resolution, which was a good start.
The Windows portable experience
It’s a mix
After the desktop loaded and the taskbar appeared (yes, there is a slight delay), my first impulse was to launch File Explorer. The portable system recognized my internal drive and I was able to access the files on it. Unfortunately, the portable windows installation It took up almost 98 percent of the available 28GB, leaving no room for apps or games. The only option is to install the software on a separate or internal drive.
I decided to try native apps. Since the CPU is quite powerful, applications like video players, photo viewers, paint and other tools ran without any noticeable issues. I tried to use the edge browser for a while, and involved random browsing, YouTube playback, and downloads. It wasn’t unpleasant, but video playback suffered some lag at high resolution.
I didn’t need to download and install wireless drivers to set up an Internet connection, which is commendable. Windows includes the necessary drivers by default, but even with Microsoft’s basic display driver installed, playback suffered from lag.
It’s not hard to see that drivers are a big problem when you’re trying to use Windows 11 in laptop mode. I tried to install the Nvidia driver for my laptop. RTX GPUand that was another arduous task. My USB drive barely had 1.5GB of free storage space and Nvidia refused to install the driver. I tried using Win11bloat to remove most of the pre-installed apps and features, which took a while, but I still couldn’t free up the required space.
I tried running a game from my NVMe drive folder and it clearly showed that the GPU drivers were the bottleneck behind visual performance. But something surprising happened. Windows automatically found and downloaded the latest AMD Radeon drivers and suddenly my external monitor and game loading issues were gone. It can run small games well if it has an integrated GPU, like the one in my laptop’s Ryzen 7 5800H processor. But don’t expect near-native performance or the ability to run AAA titles without the correct driver for the discrete GPU.
System sharing is unpredictable
An uphill battle
Managing a portable installation of Windows 11 on a single system is fine, but the real problem begins when you connect it to different systems. Drivers for older systems are difficult to find and Windows will use the basic display driver in such cases. You should also look for drivers for additional components on different systems.
On my old laptop, USB performance was slow due to the old USB 2.0 port. There were no display drivers for the 13 year old processor and I had to search for one in the DVD ISO file I created a long time ago. When you swap systems, you must be prepared for such challenges because without proper drivers, the operating system GUI works at a snail’s pace.
Windows 11 portable edition is a challenge
Even if you have an SSD to install the operating system and a compatible system, drivers still play an important role in the Windows 11 portable experience. If you try to swap systems, there is no guarantee that it will work correctly. Searching the web for old drivers is another headache, and while it’s good from an enthusiast’s point of view, the happiness of a truly portable Windows 11 comes at the cost of your peace of mind. I don’t hate performance, but the idea of adjusting drivers and settings for a different system each time sounds like a chore.
