This is pretty cool news that has found its way out with the first leaked released of Microsoft’s Windows 8 prototype: integrated into the OS is support for "portable workspaces" that will allow a user to take a 16GB or larger USB thumb drive and build a bootable environment to take with them on the go.

Here is what Winrumors.com is saying about the feature:

The addition of such a feature in Windows will ease document compatibility and application feature differences for information workers. It appears as though Microsoft is targeting the feature at Enterprise customers who may have several varied uses for portable versions of Windows. IT professionals will welcome the feature as it will empower them to quickly boot a copy of Windows 8 to diagnose any existing problems on the local PC installation. Information workers will be able to power up a copy of Windows 8 on a client’s PC with their own documents and workspace to securely and easily share any presentations or company data.

Makes sense to us, but even better is that with the advent of USB 3.0 support and drives like the OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 external SSDs, booting from an external environment might be just as fast and as usable as any current internal configuration! The ability to create your "build" of Windows on a portable USB external drive and then take it with you to any/most hardware to run it would be pretty damn nifty.

There are still some questions about the driver compatibility, etc that need to be worked out, but it looks like Windows 8 is indeed going to more that just ARM support.