Add Webconverger to E2B

Webconverger is a professional Kiosk Browser which you can run from a LiveCD ISO or as an installed OS on a hard disk or USB drive (it is based on Debian and FireFox). It can also be configured as a 'signage' panel.

Kai Hendy of Webconverger offers a 30-day free trial which is needed if you want to make use of the 'control-panel' configuration features (though it seemed to mostly work without subscription for me).

Kai Hendy tells me:
The way it works is once your credit card is provided, you have a 30 day
free trial. So no deductions are made if you want to experiment for a
month. If there is a charge on a test machine, I can refund it, don't
worry.
For those customers, if they want to cancel for any reason, I offer a 30
day money back guarantee.

The online configuration form can control many machines
all registered to the same email account.

Once a machine is 'subscribed', all remote control-panel seemed to work well and as expected, although for some changes, a reboot was required.

If your E2B USB drive is a Removable drive (e.g. most USB Flash drives) then you can just directly boot from it as an .iso file from E2B (or use .isodefault to suppress the suggestion messages). You can enter the email address that you can also use for your subscription.

However, if your E2B USB drive is of the Fixed-disk type (e.g. USB HDD) then it will not boot directly from the ISO because the pre-defined linux boot parameters include the cheat code bootfrom=removable so that it will only boot from removable media.

A simple way to remove the bootfrom=removable code is...

Add Lenovo diagnostics and BIOS Updates to E2B

The linux bootable Lenovo Diagnostics ISOs can simply be copied to any E2B menu folder (e.g. \_ISO\UTILITIES). The diagnostics will only run on Lenovo-branded systems.

The linux-bootable-cd-41308857.iso is also UEFI 64-bit bootable.

Install the E2B MPI Tool Kit and then drag-and-drop the ISO onto the Windows MPI_FAT32 shortcut (I suggest you rename the ISO first because the CSM menu title has the same name as the ISO file).


Lenovo also supply UEFI-bootable versions of their diagnostics (see below).

Hit by WannaCry? There is a decryptor now for XP and Win7.

If you or one of your users have a Windows XP or Windows 7 system and have been hit by the WannaCry ransomware virus, do not despair!

The first thing to do is to warn all users that if they are hit (and their systems are Win7 or XP),

do NOT turn off the system - do NOT reboot it - do not use it - just leave it alone!

The next thing to do is (as quickly as possible) download the decrypting software wanakiwi.exe onto a USB stick (don't use the infected system!), plug it in to the affected system and run it.

If possible, it would be better to make sure every computer had a copy of wanakiwi.exe already on their hard disk because connecting a USB drive may destroy the keys which are left in memory.

More info and an animated GIF of it in action on Windows XP and Windows7 here.

Although this has been demonstrated on a freshly infected system and wanakiwi was run as soon as the ransomware had completed encryption, I am not sure if any cases have been reported yet of wanawiki successfully working in a real life situation...

Can't boot to Windows but need some important files?

Scenario

• You are given a Windows computer which will not boot to Windows any more.
• You have tried to boot to Recovery Media/ISO and repair it, but it did not work.
• The NTFS filesystem and memory seem to be OK (you ran memory test and chkdsk).
• The issue seems to be that the Windows OS is broken.
• The internal hard disk is pretty full, so you cannot install a second copy of Windows as there is not enough free file space.
• The customer wants only a small number of certain important files recovered from the hard disk, but he doesn't know exactly where they were stored. The customer does remember a bit of the file name as does know that he used MS Word to edit the documents.

Your Mission (should you decide to accept it), is to backup those important files to an offline USB drive before you start messing around with the customers OS or the files on his hard disk.

Discussion

At this point, you could decide to take an image of the internal hard disk using any decent backup package. This is a very sensible thing to do, but it will take a while.

Install proxmox v4 from E2B

After a LOT of problems, I have managed to work out how to install the later versions of proxmox from E2B direct from the ISO file.

You will need to make a .mnu file.

See the bottom of this old post for details.

E2B v1.92 officially released

v.1.92 is now officially released.

Changes are listed here.

Add a BitLocker encrypted Windows 10 To Go OS to Easy2Boot

Windows 10 1703 (Build 15063) or later will mount all formatted partitions of a USB Removable media Flash drive.

This means we can not only boot from a flat-file installation of Windows 10 now, but because we can create a multi-partition USB flash drive, we can also encrypt the Windows volume using BitLocker.

Windows 10 will allow us to MBR-boot (not UEFI-boot) to an encrypted volume either by entering a short password (e.g. 8 characters or more) or by inserting a USB flash drive containing a .BEK key file for the encrypted volume.

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.

XML file for WinLite10

WinLite10 v7.2 for Win10 1703 Build 15063

Alacran (on reboot.pro) has notified us of a few .cmd scripts available from 'sickdroid' (or Felix Wiegand) which can remove many non-essential Windows components such as Cortana, etc. during a fresh installation of Windows 1703.

You can automatically run the rmApps.cmd script during installation of Windows 10 as follows:

Commodore PET 40 year anniversary theme for E2B

The Commodore PET was first announced, and later released, in 1977 (40 years ago).

It was a complete All-In-One computer with built-in keyboard, monitor and storage media and was months ahead of the Apple II or TRS80 (Trash80!). In essence, it was an early Macintosh and was one of the first computers suitable for business use, rather than hobbyists.

On a side note, the PET never really took off in France for some reason (apparently 'pet' is slang for another word!). Later, Commodore released the VIC, which did not sell too well in Germany either, as it sounded like you were asking for a 'fick' which is German for something quite different!

At the time, my family ran a small 12th-Century hotel in Oxford, now made famous by my late friend Colin Dexter, who wrote the world famous Inspector Morse books (Colin reviewed examination papers with his colleagues, ate, drank and sometimes slept at our hotel). Our hotel was even featured on the front cover of one of the paperback versions of 'The Secret of Annexe 3'. Colin even gave me a few first edition signed copies of various Inspector Morse books over the years, which I guess must be worth a few pennies now!

When I was a boy, I was interested in computers and had built and programmed several of my own, but I really wanted a new Commodore PET...

Now, payroll software for the PET was non-existent at that time, but in early 1978 I persuaded my father to buy me a new PET, on the promise that I would write a complete staff wages program for the hotel. I explained that this would save him hours of pouring over his H.M. Gov tax tables and Kalamazoo wages sheets every week to work out the pay packets for the 12+ staff we had working at the hotel!

E2B v1.92f with revised UtilMan hack

E2B v1.92f has a slightly different and easier implementation of the UtilMan hack now.

Steps 3 and 4 have been reversed and there is much less typing for the hacker!

Basically the process is now:

1. Boot to E2B Win 10 ISO and choose Hack Windows (UtilMan.exe).xml to patch the .exe files.

2. At Windows login screen press WIN+U and type 2 [ENTER] to make the ADMIN account.

Now play around as you like!

3. At Windows login screen, press WIN+U and type 3 [ENTER] to delete the ADMIN account.

4. Boot to E2B Win 10 ISO and choose UnHack Windows (restore UtilMan.exe).xml to unpatch the .exe files.

I have updated the previous blog post to describe the steps in more detail.

P.S. It seems MS have broken SFC now so it is unable to repair utilman.exe and sethc.exe! For the last 4 weeks or so, SFC has not been able to repair some files and complains about corrupt source files, i.e. it does not recognise the files in its own WinSXS folders - probably because they were not updated by the recent Windows updates - but hey, it only affects millions of people all over the world and Microsoft cannot possibly afford to validate it's own software or respond to bug reports!