Using Windows 10 off a USB feels like driving a rental car that somehow has your own seat settings, phone contacts, and smell. It shouldn’t work this well. But when it does, you feel like a wizard who vaguely understands how electricity works.

This is the standard method for installing Windows on a new computer or repairing an existing one. Requirements Minimum 8 GB of space.

If you find your portable Windows is running slow, apply these tweaks to extend the life of the drive and speed up the OS:

This guide covers both, but focuses primarily on the former—the ability to run a full, portable version of Windows 10 from a flash drive.

Let’s be honest: installing Windows 10 on a computer feels like getting a tattoo of your ex’s name. Permanent, risky, and hard to undo. But ? That’s the "rebootable road trip fling" of operating systems.