The AOMEI Partition Assistant is the best free alternative to WinToUSB. You can use it to create portable Windows more flexible to replace WinToUSB software.
WinToUSB software is created by The EasyUEFI Development Team. It is free for you to install and run Windows operating system on a USB portable drive by using an ISO file or CD/DVD drive. Thus, you can bring your own Windows operating system everywhere on any computer with a portable USB drive. The USB hard drive or USB flash drive is portable, which is very convenient for you when you want to use your own Windows operating system on a different place. Besides, WinToUSB supports creating bootable WinPE USB drive, which can help you transfer the contents of WinPE to the USB drive and make the USB bootable.
Actually, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 Enterprise has a new feature called Windows to Go, which you can use to create Windows to USB hard drive or USB flash drive. It needs a Microsoft-certified USB drive at least 32GB. It will cost a lot. While WinToUSB tool can replace it and it can support creating USB bootable drive for Windows 7 or later Windows OS installation.
However, WinToUSB still has many restrictions:
β Windows 7 is not completely portable. When you use the bootable USB with Windows 7 operating system on different computers, you may get a driver problems.
β Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 do not have built-in USB 3.0 support, so Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 need to be booted from a USB 2.0 port.
β Commonly, the USB flash drives are very slow. It will take a long time to install and run Windows from a USB flash drive, thus, you’d better use Microsoft-certified USB drive.
β WinToUSB does not support the previously Windows OSes, which means you can not create Windows to USB portable for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
β You need to be an administrator on the computer that you are installing the WinToUSB on.
Fortunately, there are many other software that can replace WinToUSB. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is the best alternative due to its fabulous utilities.
β AOMEI Partition Assistant supports all Windows OS with its different editions. For Server users, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server is specially designed. You can use AOMEI Partition Assistant to create bootable USB for your Windows operating system with a few simple steps.
β You have no need to be an administrator so that you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant on your computer.
β AOMEI Partition Assistant supports both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. But to get a faster speed, USB 3.0 is better. The USB drive can be non-certified by Microsoft.
Here takes an example to create Windows 7 to USB. Before you do:
β Prepare a USB drive. Both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 is OK. It should be large enough to store your data. Connect it to your PC and make it can be detected by AOMEI Partition Assistant.
β If you are planning to create Windows to USB for Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10 with Windows to Go Creator, you need prepare a Windows 8/8.1 ISO image or Windows 10 ISO image.
Step1. Download AOMEI Partition Assistant. Install and launch it. You can see the Tools> Create Bootable Media at the top pane on its main interface. Click it to open this Wizard. This wizard will lead you to create WinPE bootable media step by step. Click Next.
Step2. You need to select a way to make the desired bootable media, here we select USB Boot Device, and click Proceed.
Step 3. It will pop out a window to remind you that the USB drive will be formatted, if there is any important data, back them up first. Click Yes to move on.
Step 4. The program will execute, when the progress reaches 100%, you are succeed in creating this USB bootable device, and you can use this USB device to boot your computer by entering BIOS.
In reality, AOMEI Partition Assistant can not only create bootable media for your Windows 7/8/10/11, but also can transfer Windows 10 ISO to USB and manage your disks in the best status. You can also use it to resize partition, format partition, delete partition, etc. It is very powerful disk partition manager that can help you manage your disk partition better.