WinXP or Win7 on a stick?

[kerik]

I can't really find anything about this anywhere, but: Legal and copyright issues aside, is it possible to "transfer" my existing system on a PC to a USB stick? I imagine something like making an ISO file of the neccessary folders on my C disk and then using e.g. UnetBootin to transfer this to a USB stick. Is this at all possible?

[SYSTEM]

Booting Windows from USB seems to be possible.

http://reboot.pro/forum/77/

I haven't tried it myself.

[bmalady53]

Here are the official instructions from Microsoft for Win7 on a USB.. I have tried it and it works well.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/vide ... stick.aspx

[Midas]

Booting Windows from USB seems to be possible.

Easy for 7; not impossible, but rather hard for XP...

[webfork]

I can't really find anything about this anywhere, but: Legal and copyright issues aside, is it possible to "transfer" my existing system on a PC to a USB stick? I imagine something like making an ISO file of the neccessary folders on my C disk and then using e.g. UnetBootin to transfer this to a USB stick. Is this at all possible?

Getting XP on a USB drive isn't a huge deal: TechRepublic has a bit about this. Alternately, there are programs out there (like TinyXP) that run off a USB drive and are fantastic (and portablefreeware-friendly), but probably not very legal.

For transferring your existing OS to a USB drive, the route I would go is Virtualization: VMware and VirtualBox both offer several tools for transferring your exiting system into a virtual machine. In that case all you would need is a copy of Linux (potentially on a USB stick) with VMware/VirtualBox installed and then run your virtual machine. You'd need a fairly large USB drive and the machine in question will need a reasonable amount of RAM (probably at least 2 gigs).

Legal note: As Microsoft has gotten on board with the virtual machine party lately, it's likely possible to do the whole thing completely legitimate. Here's an article that talks about doing this on Vista. Both VMware and VirtualBox (who make this their business) probably have info on doing this legally.

[copc]

Booting Windows from USB seems to be possible.

http://reboot.pro/forum/77/

You are already in the right direction.
Win7ultimate & win8 have build in Hyper-v, so you can create with easy yourself a bootable image. For Xp you need winvblock to create it.
Multi-Boot everywhere on USB-HDD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rIyOPMV8eo

WinXP or Win7 on a stick?

It is better to use USB-HDD

[RonaldP]

Yes all is possible. I have been using both xp and window 7.