Licensing the Windows To Go Feature of Windows 8

A new Windows 8 feature called Windows To Go (WTG) allows users to boot a computer from a Windows 8 image on a USB drive. WTG is attractive to organizations because users who need to connect to the organization’s network from an unmanaged computer can do so using a corporate-sanctioned instance of Windows 8 Enterprise edition. However, use of WTG generally requires devices to have Software Assurance (SA) on Windows, an Intune subscription, or a Virtual Device Access (VDA) subscription, and customers must be careful to properly license both the creation and use of the WTG image on USB drives.

The WTG Experience

To use WTG, a user inserts the WTG USB drive into the computer’s USB port and restarts the computer. The computer will then boot from the Windows 8 Enterprise edition image on the USB drive, and the user can then authenticate as required to access the corporate network. While a computer is running a WTG image, the user has access to almost all of the hardware inside the computer, including the computer’s processor, RAM, graphics processor, network cards, and wireless modems, and any other attached peripherals, such as a keyboard, a mouse, and a monitor, but by default the user cannot access any data on the computer’s internal hard drive or leave any data behind on the hard drive when finished. When the user has finished working, the user shuts down the computer, removes the USB drive, and takes it along to the next computer.