E2B v1.92l and MPI Tool Pack 074 now available

I am hoping to release this as v1.92 Full Release version in a few days!

Includes latest grub4dos 0.4.6a (hopefully with all bugs fixed!).

MPI v0.074 has improved detection of the isolinux version.

Alternate OneDrive Download Area

Adding the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics 3-in-1 USB Key to E2B

The HP Vision Diagnostics ISO can be added to an E2B Removable USB drive if you use the .ISOPE01 file extension. It will boot straight to WinPE and you should briefly see the blue console shell window which will load the ISO as a virtual drive and allow it to find the drivers and diagnostic programs inside the ISO.

If you have a E2B HDD, you will need to convert the ISO to a FAT32 .imgPTN file (or if you boot it as .isoPE01, you could use the SHIFT+F10 key and run \_ISO\e2b\firadisk\LoadISONP.cmd from the E2B USB drive to load the ISO file as a virtual DVD to allow the diagnostic files to be seen).

The HP PC Hardware Diagnostics 3-in-1 USB Key software however, does not come as an ISO file.

Here is how to add it (or the Vision Diagnostics ISO) to E2B.

Add DLC Boot 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022 to E2B

'DLC Boot 2016 v3.2' .rar file (Build 160727) can be downloaded from the official dlcboot.com site.
As it contains copies of Windows and other licensed utilities, you should ensure you have the appropriate licences (or morals) before you use it however!

DLC2019 video with download links.

See end of page for DLCBoot 2022 .imgPTN instructions.

After unpacking the .rar file, you can run DLCBoot.exe from Windows as Administrator to either create a new bootable USB flash drive (use FAT32 for UEFI x64 booting) or a bootable ISO file or run any of the tools directly.

Run as Admin and click the CD icon to make an .ISO file

E2B v1.92k BETA now available (fixes problem when formatting as NTFS)

I had problems formatting a new USB drive using Make_E2B.exe today and discovered Windows 10 Creator is still causing RMPartUSB problems due to it recognising all partitions on a removable USB drive.

There is now a new version of RMPrepUSB and RMPartUSB (v2.1.739A) and the E2B download has also been updated. If you still get any problems making an NTFS E2B drive, please let me know!

• Google Drive download area
• OneDrive download area

Add ASCII art to E2B

If you have a text file which contains ASCII art, you can display it on the E2B boot screen by adding this line to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file:

cat /%grub%/ASCII_E2B.txt && pause --wait=1 > nul

This will display the text file briefly as E2B boots...

The next version of E2B will contain the ASCII_E2B.txt file (but you have to add the line into your MyE2B.cfg file to see it).




If you are displaying lines longer than 79 characters, you will need to switch to 800x600 first to change from the initial boot screen resolution of 640x480 (80x30 characters).

graphicsmode -1 800 ;; cat /%grub%/ASCII_E2B.txt && pause --wait=1 > nul

Make your own ASCII art

Add netboot.xyz to E2B and PXE boot

If you want some of the payloads mentioned below (see list), but don't have room on your E2B drive for all of them and you can always boot on a system which has fast internet access, you can add the small kernel 339KB netboot.xyz.lkrn PXE boot file (or the iso) to your E2B drive and get all of them!

netboot.xyz.iso now also supports UEFI booting - see FAQ for full list.

E2B v1.92j available

Changes from 1.91B (changes from v1.92h are in bold)

• Ukrainian language added (thanks to 'ruffian')
• Small bugfix to XPWINNT.g4b to allow SVR2016 folder to be selected
• New Make_E2B to add Ukrainian and Vietnamese language support
• Check added in Make_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd to check Windows find command is working
• Revised English F1.cfg help file
• New version of RMPartUSB to format the 2nd small hidden partition to prevent Win10 Format pop-up dialogue box and also sometimes failing to format as NTFS
• Bugfix to XP DPMS2 for AMD chipsets - was sometimes getting wrong PCI ID and hence wrong driver
• New \_ISO\PimpMyDrive.cmd to add extra options to Main menu
• UtilMan account hack XML and CMD files added to new \_ISO\docs\utilman folder
• Delay added to linux fmt.sh scripts after parted command, 
• WinLite10 Sample XML files added
• \_ISO\mybackground.jpg will be used if \_ISO\mybackground.bmp is not present
• \_ISO\docs\SysInfo\SysInfo2.hta added for convenient way to get system info under Windows
• Commodore PET theme added into Templates and mythemes folder
• New SanFrancisco Bridge default wallpaper
• New \grldr grub4dos 0.4.6a 2017-05-05
• Improved Utilities Menu - list files and dirs menus
• Change to .cmd files to use PowerShell to run as Admin if available (MAKE_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd now only requires one UAC prompt)
• SDI version updated
• Vietnamese language added (thanks TN)
• Strings.txt language files changed to add new 'List files' string

E2B v1.92i available

This version has a new version of grub4dos (\grldr) which has a nice new vol command, so I have also tweaked the UTILITIES menu commands for  'ls (DIR)' and 'List BIOS Disks' to improve the text output and show the volume labels.

I have also tried to improve some of the .cmd scripts which require Admin access so that they will now use Powershell to request Admin access (if Powershell is available). I have tested it on XP, Win7 and Win10 so I hope that I have not broken anything! The main advantage is that the MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd script now only gives you one UAC prompt instead of two.

Let me know if you find any issues.

Running a .cmd script with Admin rights

If you are interested, I used this single line near the top of each .cmd file

if not "%1"=="am_admin" call powershell -h | find /i "powershell" > nul && if not "%1"=="am_admin" (powershell start -verb runas '%0' am_admin > nul & exit)

The extra code is added so that under WinPE and WinXP, it does not just abort with a 'bad command' error if 'powershell' is not understood.

It checks to see if PowerShell is present and if so, it runs itself again using runas, so the beginning of the script actually runs twice.

E2B v1.92i

E2B v1.92h Beta available (Release Candidate)

1.92 will be fully Win10 Creator update compatible (I hope), so I am keen to release it soon.

Changes from 1.91B are:

• Ukrainian language added (thanks to 'ruffian')
• Small bugfix to XPWINNT.g4b to allow SVR2016 folder to be selected
• New Make_E2B to add Ukrainian lang
• Check added in Make_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd to check Windows find command is working
• Revised English F1.cfg help file
• New version of RMPartUSB to format the 2nd small hidden partition to prevent Win10 Format pop-up dialogue box and also sometimes failing to format as NTFS
• Bugfix to XP DPMS2 for AMD chipsets - was sometimes getting wrong PCI ID and hence wrong driver
• \_ISO\PimpMyDrive.cmd to add extra options to Main menu
• UtilMan account hack XML and CMD files added
• Delay added to linux fmt.sh scripts after parted command, 
• WinLite10 Sample XML files added
• \_ISO\mybackground.jpg will be used if \_ISO\mybackground.bmp is not present
• \_ISO\docs\SysInfo\SysInfo2.hta added
• PET theme added into Templates and mythemes folder
• New SanFrancisco Bridge default wallpaper

Please download and test it and let me know if you find any problems before I release it officially in a few days as version 1.92.

E2B v1.92g BETA available

This version has a few small tweaks to Utilman scripts and a new default wallpaper.
The XML files for UtilMan now start with 'UtilMan - xxxxx.xml' so that they are listed together in the E2B XML menu list. If you see four Utilman XML files, delete the ones which do NOT start with 'UtilMan - '

Let me know what you think of the new default wallpaper... ;-)

P.S. A variety of 800x600 jpg wallpapers are available in the Alternate Downloads Area - Themes  folder at WallPapers800x600.jpg.zip. if you copy these to the \_ISO folder and use the Change Wallpaper_JPG.mnu file, you can try them out.