Add PhilsComputerLab's DOSBENCHMARK test utilities to your E2B or Ventoy USB drive (and run Quake and Doom!)

Phil has provided some DOS-executables which you can use to benchmark and test legacy BIOS PCs. As well as CPU, VGA and sVGA benchmarks, it also has the trial versions of Quake and Doom which you can play!

Speedsys 4.78 run on Lenovo IdeaPad300 notebook

The main menu is shown below:

Boot or Install ReactOS Live from E2B

If you want to try ReactOS (which is at Alpha status - so still very buggy!) you can download a .imgPTN23 file here which should boot to the LiveCD ISO.

ReactOS itself does not fully support USB 2/3 AFAIK, so you may need to attach a PS/2 keyboard and mouse if using a real system. 

E2B v2.16 released

Changes in 2.16 are:

• New - Support new .wimboot file extension (can use xxxxx_.wimboot.wim to make E2B boot using iPXE wimboot method instead of NTBOOT and bootmgr\BCD).
• New - skip the prompt ‘Press ENTER to not use WIMBOOT’ if characters ‘WIMBOOT’ are in Windows Install ISO filename.
• New - Ctrl+F7 hotkey to switch display to text mode. Use Ctrl+F8 to reload menu in default mode.
• New - Alt+F7 hotkey to switch display to 1024×768 mode. Use Ctrl+F8 to reload menu in default mode.
• New - \_ISO\WINDOWS\SVR2022 folder added for Server 2022 ISOs/IMPTN files.
• New - Add support for Ventoy Linux VHD/VDI .vtoy files. \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files\Linux Mint VHD_VDI (ventoy).mnu, \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files\Linux\ventoy_grub.cfg added. 
• New - Check USB drive is not a GPT drive added. 
• New - Can use set QMENU=1 in MyE2B.cfg for faster loading of E2B menus (but no ISO volume info in descriptions and no ‘not contiguous’ warnings given). Improve menu loading time if many files in menu folder.
• New - Add “\_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Download and update E2B.cmd” – this script will download the latest currently released version of E2B (or latest Beta if available) and then update the E2B version on the USB drive, then proceed to download and update agFM and Ventoy for Easy2Boot and Ventoy Plugins.
• Bugfix - SWITCH_E2B.exe fix not switching if partition 4 has start/size parameters but is Type 0.
• E2B Menu F1 ENGlish help text updated, hotkey grub4dos utility updated, \grldr grub4dos version updated.

Three new ways to make or save money (but be quick!)

Here are some ideas to get approx. £40 in less than an hour (no risk) and save up to 30% on Christmas gifts or purchases and save £££s on your weekly supermarket shopping bills for ever!

E2B v2.16j available with E2B update script

v2.16j - Add "\_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Download and update E2B.cmd" - this script will download the latest currently released version of E2B (or latest Beta if available) and then update the E2B version on the USB drive, then proceed to download and update agFM and Ventoy for Easy2Boot and Ventoy Plugins.

If an E2B Beta is available you can download and install that version, otherwise it will download the currently released version.

You can download any E2B version and drag-and-drop the .zip file onto the Download and update E2B.cmd script and it will use that file instead of downloading one.

The script will then go on to download and install the latest current release of agFM and Ventoy for Easy2Boot (you will be asked if you want to update first).

Note: If you abort the script during operation, it may leave some temporary files on your Windows system. You can delete them by simply running the script again and answer No at the first question.

Easy2Boot v2.16h Beta available

I have made a slight improvement to speed up the enumeration/loading time of an E2B menu folder.

In addition, if you add

set QMENU=1

into your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file it will also speed up the menu load time (but the ISO volume name and the contiguous file status will not be checked or displayed).

The E2B grub4dos+grub4efi Beta version has also been updated if you want to experiment and UEFI-boot to a UEFI E2B menu system.

I am thinking of releasing E2B 2.16 soon so please let me know if you spot any issues.

Beta downloads are in the Alternate Download Areas as usual - Latest Betas folder.

E2B Change History

New Linux VHD\VDI video

I have added a new YouTube video to demo how to make VHDs or VDIs containing fully installed Linux OS's and boot to them from E2B\agFM\Ventoy.

You can also boot to the .VTOY file using your own grub2/grub4dos/rEFInd menu system - see the vdiskchain github project for details.

You can add "VTOY_LINUX_REMOUNT=1" as a kernel parameter to add to the boot parameters. 

I have also updated the 'Getting started with Ventoy' eBook to include a chapter and Exercise on how to make a .vtoy Linux file and how to add the VTOY_LINUX_REMOUNT=1 into the grub.cfg  of the Linux VHD\VDI permanently.

The latest 2.16 Beta of E2B supports .VTOY files. The current latest agFM also supports .VTOY files (as well as the current 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' 1.0.79).

Beaware of this VentoyPlugson issue!

I have noticed a problem with tab pages in Ventoy's VentoyPlugson web-based app.

Basically, there is no indication of whether or nor a 'mode' section exists in the ventoy.json file.

This is important because if for instance a 'control_uefi' section exists within the ventoy.json file AND YOU UEFI-BOOT then the settings in the first tab page named 'control' will be ignored and only the settings in the 'control_uefi' page will be used. However, if there is NO 'control_uefi' key defined in the ventoy.json file then the settings in the 'control_uefi' tab will be ignored and the settings in the 'control' tab page will be used.

The problem is the web application does not indicate whether a 'control_mode' section exists or not - so it is not clear which tab page will be used by Ventoy!

I discovered this when I found that the VTOY_LINUX_REMOUNT setting did not appear to work in legacy mode but did work in UEFI64 mode. It turned out my ventoy.json file had these settings:

{

    "control":[

        { "VTOY_WIN11_BYPASS_CHECK": "1" },

        { "VTOY_LINUX_REMOUNT": "1" }

    ],

    "control_legacy":[

        { "VTOY_DEFAULT_MENU_MODE": "1" }

    ]

}

This means that when I legacy booted, the VTOY_LINUX_REMOUNT setting did NOT take effect because Ventoy used the settings in the 'control_legacy' section and ignored the settings in the 'control' section.

Testing a Ventoy USB drive using VirtualBox under Windows 10/11 (and why it didn't work!)

I usually test Ventoy, Easy2Boot, Rufus bootable USB drives using Oracle Virtual Box 5 under a Windows 10 OS.

To do this I use the VMUB utility (only works with VBox v5 - not v6 or v7). This removes the USB drive from Windows immediately  before running VBox so that VBox will have full rd/wr access to the USB drive and can Lock it for access. If VMUB is not used then strange issues can occur because VBox will snapshot all changes to the USB drive whilst under control of the virtual BIOS\Firmware.

I have always had problems running Ventoy under VBox +VMUB however - usually with Legacy booting which would sometimes fail on VBox but work OK on a real system. However, I did find that some of my Virtual Machines seemed to work better than others with Ventoy.

E2B v2.16g and agFM v1.92 now have .vtoy support for full Linux OS VHD\VDI booting

Ventoy has the ability to boot from full Linux installations which have been installed onto a fixed .VHD file, fixed .VDI file or a disk raw image file. However, the code used can also be used under grub2 and grub4dos too. If you have an existing disk with Linux on it, you should be able to use the RMPrepUSB - Disk>File button to capture a .img file (although I haven't tried it with a Linux disk).

This means that a E2B USB drive (or any drive or partition) can contain multiple VHD or VDI Linux files and you can boot to a full Linux and run it at full speed (no persistence file is used). The only problem is that you cannot update the Linux kernel when booting in this way. If you wish to update the Linux version, you should do this by booting the VHD/VDI file under a Virtual Machine again - update the kernel - and then re-run the vtoyboot.sh script again. Then you can copy the new file to the E2B USB drive.

To update your E2B USB drive

See Alternate Downloads - Latest Beta folder for latest E2B version. If you wish to also test grub4efi, you can download the experimental 2.16gEFI version.
agFM v1.92 supports .vtoy files - run Ptn2:\e2b\Update agFM\Download and update agFM_v2.cmd to get the latest version of agFM.

'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' v1.0.79d released

The current release of the official Ventoy v1.0.79  does not currently support Windows .7z file injection if you use the Ctrl+W  WIMBOOT override key (some PCs will not boot Windows ISOs without using WIMBOOT).

My latest version includes the latest Beta code so that WIMBOOT mode will also work with file injection (the next official version - Ventoy v1.0.80 will probably have this fix too).

Also, my new version will respond to the w, i, u and r keys (with or without the ctrl key) which means you can use those modifier keys on a Mac AirBook or other non-standard computer which does not recognise the Ctrl key.

Please run \e2b\Update agFM\Update_to_latest_Ventoy_version.cmd on Ptn2 to update to the latest version of 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot'.