In contrast to previous studies a new coating strategy was developed to decouple the viscosity in the glass volume from the sticking behaviour at the glass surface. Not the mould, but the glassy substrate was coated with a thin, adhesive and ductile layer. For that purpose, soda-lime silica and borosilicate glasses were coated with gold, chromium, carbon, silica or titanium oxide. The isothermal hot embossing was carried out under air or, however, under argon atmosphere with a pressure of 500 Pa. Under vacuum inert gas atmosphere, all examined coatings shift the sticking temperatures by around 80 K to temperatures near the Littleton-temperature of the glass, which is even higher than the temperature process range of micro structuring. The adhesive forces are <10% in comparison to those observed at uncoated glass substrates. Under air, the increase in the sticking temperature is not as pronounced. The coatings on the glass enable to apply hot embossing at higher temperatures and hence at smaller viscosities. Hence high shear rates and a reduction of embossing forces are enabled