How can I easily make a live USB drive that is persistent? My goal is to boot it through the boot menu (not grub). And just reboot to Windows for the few things I need on my laptop. I would prefer if my laptop had no trace of Linux installed. I found a guide, but it looked endless and needlessly complicated. Does anyone have a premade process? I’m not attached to any distro.

Any help is much appreciated.

Background: Every couple of years I get fed up with windows and give Linux another try. I love the idea behind it, the stability and… Inevitably I find something that won’t run, then get fed up. I no longer have the energy for Wine or running more than a command or two. I want the idiot experience.

Recently, I put together a live USB of Mint. It did most of what I need, but I didn’t want to deal with grub or partitions. Errors there suuuuck. So, I figured a persistent USB version would be great. From what I read, you can just install like normal, only to the USB drive. Of course I accidentally installed grub and nearly gave myself a heart attack when I couldn’t get to the boot menu. (Had to put the USB drive back in). The Linux install didn’t work either- not sure why. So, now I’m back to hating Microsoft’s increasing ads and data tracking, wishing Linux was just a little simpler.