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Thanks for the tips! I was hoping to get a usb virtual machine type setup, plug and play, fully portable.

My pleasure.
Portable ROCKS, though knowing the right FUNCTION key to press (along with the trickery of the UEFI vs BIOS there for awhile, not much any more) make it an art form all in it's own.
Virtually, all you need is the ISO file of the OS - most virtual managers will mount the ISO image and run/install it from the local file.
The more Memory the better (wish I had more memory, and not just talking about my laptop).