The latest Beta of E2B is now available: v2.11c.
Some of the .mnu files for UEFI/agFM/Ventoy support in \_ISO\MAINMENU folder were 'hard-coded' to English. In the new Beta 2.11c I have now put the menu titles into each of the language files (however they are still in English):
It was previously possible to make partition images of Ventoy and then replace Partition 2 of the E2B USB drive with the Ventoy partition image, however in Ventoy v1.0.57 onwards, extra checks have been added into Ventoy and it now checks for Ventoy grub2 boot code in the MBR of the drive. This means that new versions will no longer work as partition images. :-(
However, I have modified the script and .cfg files so that it now also replaces the grub4dos boot code with the Ventoy grub2 boot code. The result is that we can now make Ventoy partition images again and boot to them and Ventoy still thinks the drive is an 'official' Ventoy USB stick.
Note that this exercise is only for someone who knows where their towel is and don't try it if you have not made a backup of your E2B drive just in case something goes wrong!
I found a bug in the latest release version of E2B v2.10 - file extension overrides no longer work.
e.g. a filename of Ubuntu_.isodef.iso should automatically use the .isodef extension, or win10pe_.isope01.iso should use the extension of .isope01 but in the latest version it doesn't work.
The new Beta version of E2B with a bugfix for this is v2.11a.
The Beta download folder is here.
Note that the latest grub4dos releases are not used by E2B. Some new bugs and incompatibilities have been introduced and also the old grub4dos utilities such as wenv and fat and hotkey no longer work with the new grub4dos versions and you have to replace them with new compatible versions. So although the latest grub4dos versions have a few new features (e.g. allowing menu titles and menu help text to be in multiple colours), I still use a February 2020 version of grub4dos in E2B.
I have also updated the E2B+grub4efi experimental version which uses the latest version of 'grub4dos for UEFI'. It is now version v2.10i. For instructions on how to use this grub4efi version see the previous blog article here.
Note that grub4efi (grub4dos for uefi) is still buggy. It crashes if you try to use the map command on iso files too often and it does not support wimboot so I have to use grub2\agFM to boot to WinPE and wim files! Because of this, I don't see grub4efi as being very useful so this Beta is for experimental use only and is just for the curious.
You can find the latest 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' v1.0.57 here.
P.S. v1.0.57 is now live and will be downloaded when you make a new drive or update your drive.
After downloading it, drag-and-drop the file onto the \e2b\Update agFM\Add_Ventoy.cmd file on the 2nd partition.
It seems to work OK but please let me know if you find any problems.
P.S. Seems to be a problem with h and m (help and checksum) menus in the first release! If you have already downloaded the 1.0.57 version, please download the new 1.0.57b version which has a fix (ventoy-1.0.57b-windows.zip).
I have revised the 'Getting started with Ventoy' user guide/manual for the small changes in the menu system in the latest version of Ventoy. Just use the link in the confirmation email that you were sent to download the latest version for free!
If you haven't got it yet, then you can get the PDF file from my eBook Store.
P.S. You can now get 10% off the total basket when you buy more than one eBook ;-)
See https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_news.html for more details of latest Ventoy version changes.It seems that LongPanda has now put extra checks into Ventoy so that it now checks the MBR for grub2 boot code. This means that being able to make and add 'Official Ventoy' images as described here has now been updated! You can also use 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' which is included in E2B.
Ventoy is improving all the time and it is now pretty good at booting most payloads, however it does not support Legacy installs of Windows 95/98/Me/XP/2000 and it's DOS and legacy ISO support is a bit weak. You may also find that E2B may work with some Linux payloads where Ventoy fails (but make sure the ISO files are contiguous as required by E2B!).
The good news is that you can easily add legacy E2B (not agFM) to an existing Ventoy USB drive as follows:
I have been slaving away over a hot keyboard for weeks now writing an introductory eBook (PDF) on Ventoy and it is now finally finished!
You can get this new manual/user guide now for only $5 from Payhip here (10% discount if you buy more than one eBook).
Even though it is written specifically for Ventoy users, it also applies to 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' which is a slightly modified version included with Easy2Boot.
As with all my eBooks, all future revisions are free - just keep the original confirmation email and download any later revisions if they appear (you can subscribe too).
This new eBook is up to date and can be used with the latest Ventoy v1.0.56 which was released today.
Please let me have any feedback (good or bad!).
P.S. The developer LongPanda provides Ventoy for free and also constantly maintains it. You can make a donation to support LongPanda and Ventoy here.
Getting started with Ventoy (v1.00 - 2021-10-22)
Contents:
Chapter 1 - Introduction ... 5
I have updated the easy2boot.xyz, easy2boot.com and FossHub sites with the new v2.10 of E2B.
I received no feedback (good or bad!) from the pre-release, so I hope its OK.
Here are the changes:
If you have a large E2B USB drive (up to 2TB), then you can easily boot from a backup ISO file and save the backup onto the same E2B USB drive (or any other connected drive or network drive).
The E2B USB drive can be made using the 'Gear wheel' button on Make_E2B.exe so that the MBR partitions are as follows:
Ptn1: 127GiB NTFS
Ptn2: 1GiB FAT32
Ptn3: NTFS (remaining space)
Ptn4: (must be unused for E2B use)
We keep Pnt1+Ptn2 size below 128GiB because some Legacy BIOSes are buggy and will not access sectors beyond 128GiB on USB drives. If you are not concerned about these Legacy BIOSes (which can even be found on quite recent BIOSes) then you do not need to limit the Ptn1 size.
The following ISOs can boot on Legacy and UEFI64 systems using E2B\agFM\Ventoy.
You can download a Windows 11 ISO from the official Microsoft page here (3rd option). You need to select Windows 11, then the Country (note: 'English'=American whereas 'English International' = UK and all other English-speaking countries).
System specifications for Win11 are here.
The Microsoft checker app is here.
There is also way to install Win11 on a non-TPM system (or one that does not support Secure Boot or does not have enough RAM) - see the WIN11_TPM_FIX_README.txt file in the \_ISO\WINDOWS\WIN11 folder for details and the screenshot below...
Note that Win11 may refuse to add any updates if your system is sub-spec.
You can also tweak Ventoy to install to a non-TPM/non-Secure-Boot system in a similar way (see here).
If you are using E2B v.2.10 then it will already have an \_ISO\WINDOWS\WIN11 folder for the Win11 ISO.
E2B v2.10 Pre-release is here and has the following changes: