You can install Windows 7 on USB to create a portable Windows 7 USB drive, thus you can run Windows 7 from the USB on any device.
Nowadays, many computer users like to install Windows 7 on USB drive for a portable Windows 7 and you can actually benefit a lot from it.
1. Allows you to try Windows 7 without installing it. If you don’t know how Windows 7 functions and cannot decide to use Windows 7, you can create a portable Windows 7 to USB drive and experience it on other compatible devices without upgrading the system or installing it. 2. All your programs and applications are available With Windows 7 on a USB flash drive or external hard drive, you can take it with you wherever you go and run Windows 7 on any PC. For example, if you need to use some applications of your office computer at home, a portable Windows 7 USB drive will make this easy. 3. Leaves no footprint You can borrow a friend or work colleague’s PC to run portable Windows without worrying about leaving accounts logged in or accidentally saving confidential data to the local machine. This is because the host computer is kept offline by default when you boot up into portable Windows 7.
You probably have heard of Windows to Go. It is a new feature released by Windows. You can use this feature in Windows 8 Enterprise, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Windows 10 Education. This feature allows you to you install a portable version of Windows 8 and Windows 10 on a Microsoft certified USB flash drive.
However, this feature does not supports Windows 7 and some versions of Windows 8/10. When you select the external drive as the target location to install Windows 11/10/8/7, you will get the error “Windows cannot be installed to this disk”.
If you are a Windows 7 user, you may wonder is there a way to install Windows 7 on a USB removable storage device? Luckily, there is professional third-party software that can do this for you.
To install Windows 7 on an external hard drive, you should prepare a PC running Windows 7, Windows 7 ISO file, and a USB drive with more than 16GB of capacity. AOMEI Partition Assistant is reliable and trustable third-party software with many powerful features built-in. The feature Windows To Go Creator can help you to make a fully functional portable Windows 7 to USB flash drive. A USB drive with 16GB in size is enough to complete the creation. It is OK even the USB drive is non-certified. Besides Windows 7, you can apply this software on any edition of Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Tips:
1. Windows 7 does not have built-in USB 3.0 support, so you’d better use USB 2.0. 2. The common USB flash drives can be very slow and it will take a long time to install and run Windows from a common USB flash drive. It is recommended to use a USB hard disk. 3. After creation, the USB drive will be formatted to NTFS, and all the data on the USB drive will be lost. Therefore, if there is any data on the USB drive, you should backup the files in advance.
To create a portable Windows 7 USB drive, download AOMEI Partition Assistant. It is very easy to operate. Even those who do not know how to install Windows from a USB drive can follow this guide to get it done.
The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
Now, let’s get to know how to make a portable Windows 7 USB edition.
Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant on Windows 7 computer, then connect the USB drive to your computer.
Step 2. Click “Tools” in the top toolbar, and choose “Windows To Go Creator”. The software will detect the USB drive automatically.
Step 3. Choose Create Windows To Go for personal computer and click Next.
Step 4. Click Browse to select the Winows7 ISO file in the pop-up window and then click Proceed to continue.
Step 4. Then the program will inform you to backup the data on this USB drive. If you already have one, click Yes.
Step 5. When the task is finished, restart your computer, change the boot order in BIOS, and boot Windows 7 from the USB drive.
If you do not have Windows 7 ISO file, you can make it with the following steps.
Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant on Windows 7 computer, then connect the USB drive to your computer.
Step 2. Click All Tools and Windows To Go Creator on the left side. The software will detect the USB drive automatically.
Step 3. Select "Create Windows To Go for personal computer" and "Create Windows To Go with current system" and then click "Next."
Step 4. Click Next, and you will be asked to build a WinPE image. Click Yes.
Step 5. After successfully built the WinPE image, it will prompt you to reboot the computer.
Step 6. Change the boot order to boot from the USB drive in BIOS after completion.
After the completion of a portable Windows 7 USB drive, you can run Windows 7 on other devices from USB as you want. When you run Windows 7 on other devices, you should remember to change the boot order.
Tips: The portable Windows 7 cannot be upgraded. You should recreate the workspace if needed.
It is quite easy to make a portable Windows 7 USB drive with the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant. Just follow the simple steps mentioned above, you can make an exact copy of Windows 7. And you can bring it wherever you go and run it on any compatible device.
Besides Windows To Go Creator, AOMEI Partition Assistant has many other useful features like convert data disk between MBR and GPT partition styles, migrate OS to SSD, merge partitions, etc.
