Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Windows to Go

If you work in a corporation—especially if you’re in charge of the computers there—you’ve heard of BYOD. It stands for “bring your own device,” and it means “employees bringing their own tablets, laptops, and phones to work.”

It sounds like a great idea; why shouldn’t the worker bees enjoy the comfort of their own machines? But system administrators hate BYOD. It means that the unsophisticated peons are bringing in all kinds of unsecure, uninspected, unapproved hardware and software into the carefully controlled corporate environment. They’d much rather issue you a nine-pound, kerosene-powered Dell laptop from 2007 that they’ve personally set up and locked down for your use.

Windows to Go, a feature in the Enterprise edition of Windows 8.1, offers a clever solution. It lets your IT overlords create a complete Windows world on a flash drive that can be used to start up any laptop—even your own. It contains a copy of Windows, whatever programs the bosses want you to have, documents, the works. (That’s why it requires a flash drive that holds 32 gigabytes or more!)

Note

If you are the IT overlord, here are the steps for creating a Windows to Go installation for use by your underlings: http://j.mp/YetpTa.

Actually, it doesn’t have to be a laptop. You could start up any recent Windows machine—at home, at work, on the road—from this flash drive and find yourself in the same exact Windows world that your company set up for you.

To use the Windows to Go flash drive, insert it into ...