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Support Policy for Windows booting from external drives

Summary

This article discusses the following scenarios:

Install Windows to USB drive.
Install Windows to Flash Drive(UFD) drive.
Install Windows to ESATA drive.
Store Windows 7 Native Boot VHD on USB/UFD drive.

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More Information

It is unsupported to boot Windows from external devices. Some of the reasons why this is not supported:

Potential Boot Path support issues.
Activation issues.
You must disable the device write cache or click ‘safe removal’ before unplugging the cable. Otherwise, there could be a data loss.

Some specialized products do support this type of scenario:

Windows 7 embedded: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/westandard/default.mspx
Deploying Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 on USB Flash Drive: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee731893(WS.10).aspx

Note: Booting Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 from USB flash drive is only supported for OEM's.

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Keywords: vkball, kb

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Article Info

Article ID	:	2485453
Revision	:	1
Created on	:	1/8/2017
Published on	:	11/9/2011
Exists online	:	False
Views	:	132