Can a live external hard drive version of wndows7 run on another pc?

[sdowney717]

Such as is done in Linux.
Install win7 onto drive, then put in an external HD case.

 

[oscer1]

Hi
To the best of my knowledge you can't. Why would you want to run windows on an external drive?

 

[sdowney717]

Carry your own OS with you.
Imagine visiting friends, but you want to have your OS right there with you, with all your programs, data, pictures.

Or you can plug in anywhere from a different work PC with your OS.

So on an external drive boot off that using usb.

USB will continue to gain speed. The 3.1 standard is much faster than the 3.0 spec which is much faster than usb 2.0.

 

[oscer1]

Yeah but when you install the OS it takes a snap shot of the hardware it was installed on so if you try putting hard drive to another computer it will look for the hardware and it will not boot. Since has different hardware.

 

[sdowney717]

yes, I suppose so, it is deliberate though, an imposed limitation to prevent piracy.
Earlier versions of windows would cross boot onto entirely different hardware.
I was wondering if MS had allowed an external separate drive do that.
But that works fine with Linux, booting from an external usb drive onto any hardware PC.

 

[oscer1]

If it is retail version can only be used on one computer at a time OEM is tied to the computer it was installed on.

 

[Indianatone]

yes, I suppose so, it is deliberate though, an imposed limitation to prevent piracy.
Earlier versions of windows would cross boot onto entirely different hardware.
I was wondering if MS had allowed an external separate drive do that.
But that works fine with Linux, booting from an external usb drive onto any hardware PC.

Please provide an example of an earlier version of Windows that boots onto different hardware without issues.

 

[badcrc]

Never tried it, but I understand you can put Windows 8.1 Enterprise on a removable drive.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/devices/windowstogo.aspx

 

[whs]

If you want to carry your OS aroun, install it under VMware Player on an external disk (best is a USB3 attached SSD). VMWare player becomes the host system and you can run it on any system that has VMWare Player installed. You need a product key for that installation. Here are all the systems I run from an external SSD.

 

[sdowney717]

yes, I suppose so, it is deliberate though, an imposed limitation to prevent piracy.
Earlier versions of windows would cross boot onto entirely different hardware.
I was wondering if MS had allowed an external separate drive do that.
But that works fine with Linux, booting from an external usb drive onto any hardware PC.

Please provide an example of an earlier version of Windows that boots onto different hardware without issues.

Everything up to and including windows ME, I did that frequently. Are you that young and me that old?

As it booted on the new machine, it would re-detect all the devices on the new PC.

Windows XP broke that giving you the blue screen, the computer has been shut down to protect your PC, when really it should have said to protect our OS from being pirated..

 

[sdowney717]

If you want to carry your OS aroun, install it under VMware Player on an external disk (best is a USB3 attached SSD). VMWare player becomes the host system and you can run it on any system that has VMWare Player installed. You need a product key for that installation. Here are all the systems I run from an external SSD.

yes, I have done that, but it adds another layer, the player.

 

[whs]

The Player is not really in the way. Big advantage though is that it shields you from any driver problems.

 

[sdowney717]

The Player is not really in the way. Big advantage though is that it shields you from any driver problems.

Yes, but another advantage of a true usb boot is say the PC has no working OS installed. Then you could access the files and folders.

How do windows users access files and folders if the OS is damaged or virus infected?
One difficult way which I have done and not just a few times is yank the drive and put it into another PC.

 

[whs]

How do windows users access files and folders if the OS is damaged or virus infected?

There are many ways to do that. I have 2 tutorials for my ways:

1. The easy way
2. The sophisticated way - watch my embedded video

But then there is always the live Linux CD option.