Win 7 on External HDD

[aceuk]

If I Instal Vmware on a Windows 7 PC and install a copy of Windows 7 on a external HDD(USB 3.0) ,
will my IMac( late 2013 version) with Vmware see the drive and run the Windows 7 on it when connected.
Also Do I need to have the same version of Vmware on both machines.
Will the proformance/speed be ok for running windows games (not FPS) and office work .
Thanx

 

[aceuk]

Any help on this.

 

[freeuser]

can't help you on installing Win7 on an external harddisk

because it's known not an easy way and for me to much hassel. but maybe this will be a solution for you too, what I have done:

installed Mavericks on an external Thunderbolt SSD, installed Parallels 9 with Windows 8.1 in it, and it's running great!

 

[noodle654]

Any help on this.

I just tried to do the same using USB 3. Does not work, however I have seen that it does with Thunderbolt. Really unfortunate that Windows 7 doesn't support this. Windows 8 now supports external booting via Windows-to-go. There are some hacks and ways around this but to me it just wasn't worth it.

For your scenario I am not sure if Windows 7 will boot from a PC to Mac even in VMWare because of hardware differences. Might be wrong on this.

 

[aceuk]

Thanks for your input.
So It looks like I'll have to get a Thunderbolt drive if I want to do this.
That has put the price up.
I was looking at getting a Hard disk enclosure(£30) and putting my 1TB drive in it.