Friday 13 October 2017

E2B v1.96e available (bugfix)

There was a bug in v1.95 which means that (*for some reason) the .isofira01 file extension (as used for Strelec ISOs) does not seem to work.

v1.96e fixes this.

* The reason is that firadisk looks for a 'ramdisk' that is below 1MB is size, so using a larger ramdisk did not work!

Tuesday 10 October 2017

E2B v1.96d now available

Just a small 'enhancement'.

In this version, if you have created a matching .txt file for your payload file, then E2B will not suggest an alternative file extension (unless SCROLL LOCK is on) and will boot straight to the payload file with no delay.

e.g.
\_ISO\LINUX\Ubuntux64.iso
\_ISO\LINUX\Ubuntux64.txt

I have reasoned that if you have taken the trouble to make a .txt file, then you have already tested it and it works and so has the correct file extension.

This message and delay is now suppressed if a .matching txt file exists.
If you don't like this new feature, please let me know and I will remove it.

E2B 1.96d is available from Alternate Downloads Areas as usual (see side panel on this page).

Wednesday 4 October 2017

Modify any WinPE using PEStartup

Following on from my previous blog post on PEStartup, I have written Tutorial #143 on how to use PEStartup to configure any ready-made WinPE OS such as Strelec, Hirens, DLC, Dium and Gandalf WinPEs.

In fact, standard Win10PESE WinBuilder builds including the latest Gandalf Redstone 2 WinPE and Bob Omb's PEs 'just work' and will automatically run PEStartup when they boot, if you follow the Tutorial (you just extract files from a .zip file onto your E2B drive!).

If the WinPE does not have the correct plugin already, you just need to double-click on the \TheOven_Startup.cmd script to run PEStartup and configure your WinPE Desktop.
Many thanks again to Tứ Nguyễn for his PEStartup utility.

Add WinPE Reboot and Shutdown Desktop Shortcuts


Configure PEStartup to add Desktop shortcuts using wpeutil.exe


Add lightweight WinPE versions to E2B that you can easily configure yourself!

It is normally very difficult to tailor a WinPE project to your own requirements unless you rebuild the entire OS each time.

However, there is a way to make changes to your WinPE OS and have those changes remembered on reboots. For instance, you can specify your own wallpaper and Desktop shortcuts.

32-bit XP and 32-bit and 64-bit Win 10 PE builds are available.

See also the more recent blog post here for use with any WinPE.

Tuesday 3 October 2017

Gandalf’s Win10PE x64 Redstone 2 build 15063 version 10-01-2017 is now available

Download from here. It is based on WinBuilder and ChrisR's Win10PESE project.

To add to E2B, just copy the .iso file to a menu folder (e.g. \_ISO\WINPE) and run \MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.exe to make it contiguous.

To suppress the tips and extension suggestions made by the QRUN.g4b script when you run it, just add the letter Q or q to the end of the filename. e.g.
Gandalf'sWin10PEx64Redstone2_10-01-2017q.iso

Do not uses spaces in the filename. If you want to change the menu entry and have spaces in the filename, use a .txt file - e.g. Gandalf'sWin10PEx64Redstone2_10-01-2017.txt

To change keyboard locale press CTRL+TAB.

Tip: if you add PEStartup to your USB drive and PortableApps.com (Start.exe) to the Desktop as Startup options. you can use the Shutdown/reboot button in the PortableApps GUI to shutdown/reboot (as the Start Menu Shutdown\Reboot does not work). You can also add lots of PortableApps apps easily too. Gandalf Redstone 2 will automatically run PEStartup 20 seconds after it loads the Desktop.

Monday 2 October 2017

E2B v1.96c available

Just a few small changes (no bug fixes)
  • QRUN.g4b now checks for fixed type of .VHD\.VHDX file - dynamic VHDs won't boot.
  • Added help text for installing from puppy ISOs (.isopup)
  • Improved GIFtoIMA.cmd script to calculate size of .IMA file required and now will optionally add the new code lines to your MyE2B.cfg file for you.
  • New default wallpaper for E2B
  • New SWITCH_E2B.exe version 1.0.17 with improved file re-ordering for dual image payloads
    (see Method 4). 
  • Added extra Win7/8/10 disk 1 sample XML unattended install files for use with VMs where disk 1 is the target HDD instead of disk 0.  See here for more info.
Download from Alternate Download Sites as usual.

How to use E2B with Virtual Box to test unattended Windows installs

In a chat session with 'Nathan' today, he explained how he uses VBox to install Windows to a Virtual Machine using ISO files on an E2B USB drive.

Testing E2B's 'Install Windows from ISO' method in a Virtual Machine is problematic because Windows needs to detect a Removable drive (e.g. CD\DVD or USB flash drive) in the system - Setup will only pick up the \AutoUnattend.XML (or \Unattend.XML) file from removable drives.

However, under a VM, a USB drive is 'mapped' as a virtual (IDE\SATA etc.) hard disk when using a .vmdk file (so the drive is not seen as a Removable drive once WinPE\Windows Setup runs).

This means the Product Key and other settings in the XML file are not used by Windows Setup when testing in a VM.

We can get around this by booting in two stages and by adding a USB WinHelper drive:

Saturday 30 September 2017

Adding MDT ISOs to Easy2Boot (UEFI+MBR)

Boot from a .imgPTN23 file

You can 'switch-in' a partition image which holds the MDT boot files and Deployment folder.

For MBR-booting, the simplest way to add an ISO made by the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, is to convert the MDT ISO file to a .imgPTN file using the E2B MPI Tool Kit. Just Drag-and-Drop the MDT ISO file (or MDT USB drive letter) onto the MPI_FAT32 Windows Desktop shortcut.

Rename the file to have a .imgPTN23 file extension.

MDT Setup

This should work fine, as long as all the files inside the ISO are less than 4GB in size, and then you can MBR and UEFI-boot from the .imgPTN file. Later versions of MDT support the creation of split wims, so this will work even for MDT with large files.

If UEFI-booting and you have a large WIM file, you could try using the MPI_NTFS shortcut to create an NTFS .imgPTN23 file. Then you can UEFI boot to agFM on the 2nd FAT32 partition (E2B v2 only) and from agFM boot from the WIM file on the first partition or the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file on the first partition.

Tip: Instead of using E2B, you could just copy all your ISOs to an IODD Mini #ad. You can still put E2B on it as well! The IODD Mini just looks like a USB DVD once the ISO is selected, so even Secure UEFI boot works.

Alternate method for MBR-booting

If you have files inside the ISO that are larger than 4GB, then use the MPI_NTFS shortcut instead. However, you will only be able to MBR-boot unless you first  UEFI64-boot to agFM (see above).

Below are instructions for direct booting from an MDT ISO (MBR-booting only) and another set of instructions for MBR+UEFI-booting by using two image files...

New Spanish\Espanol YouTube videos uploaded by 'Decomputo - Valledupar'

Many people make YouTube videos showing Easy2Boot, but here is one that shows multiple wallpapers, a modified language file and uses a different text font...

and another just on how to get started...


Add a slideshow to your E2B menu

I have made a quick PowerPoint presentation and converted it to an 'animated GIF' .IMA file for use with E2B. So you can now have PowerPoint slides on your E2B menu!


Tuesday 26 September 2017

Try JondoFox Live CD for secure and anonymous browsing

The JonDo Live CD\ISO is now no longer under development but the 2016 version is still available for download.

You may find it easier to use from E2B than Tails, but it does not seem to support persistence or UEFI.

To see what other sites can learn about you when you simply view their site, click here and then click on Start Test.

JonDoFox Live ISO



To use the network (internet) - click the Network Manager icon at the bottom of the display (move mouse to bottom of screen).


To browse securely, you will need to follow the instruction here.

You can also install the JonDoFox browser onto your OS from here.

Sunday 24 September 2017

Add Kali Linux + persistence (UEFI+MBR) to E2B

There is already a .mnu file for booting to a Kali ISO file in MBR mode with persistence.
E2B v1.B4+ also supports the special .isopersistdebian file extension so no .mnu file is required.
There is also a blog tutorial for a full OS install of Kali onto E2B here.




Recommended method: See also the Kali with persistence sample agFM .cfg file in the \e2b folder on the 2nd agFM partition (see here).


Saturday 23 September 2017

How to install Puppy to an HDD using Easy2Boot

You can boot from a Puppy Linux ISO by giving the file a .isopup file extension.

In this way you can boot directly from the ISO to a 'LiveCD' version of Puppy and get to the Desktop.

But if you try to install Puppy to a hard disk, you will get an error because it cannot find the CDROM.

First, if you have a CD drive, ensure it is empty.

To fix this, use these commands in a terminal shell session before you start the Install process:


mkdir /cdrom
mount /dev/sdX4 /cdrom

where X is the letter for your E2B USB drive (in my case it was 'a' because I was using VBOX+VMUB).

The first command will probably fail if you have a CD-ROM drive fitted (make sure it's empty), but you can ignore the error. The second command should cause the USB partition to be mounted as a read-only device.

This mounts the ISO as the cdrom so it can be found by the installer. Do not create a Save file and do not copy the .sfs file from CDROM when requested on shutdown.

Once you have booted from the hard disk, you can create a save file on shutdown.

Thursday 21 September 2017

Create a Restore partition on your UEFI Windows 8\10 PC using CloneZilla (Version 5)

I have updated the Tutorial 142 and changed the functionality so that you can make unattended backups or restores from Windows (Check the .zip download says 'v.5' or later before downloading).

This allows the user to 'remote-in' using TeamViewer and restore a system from Windows (or make a new backup).

The image file IMG is always used.

When a Backup is made, the current IMG image will be erased.

You can also password protect the menu entries and protect any access to the grub2 console.

You can just have the wallpaper show but no menu (unless you press ESC or press a hotkey).

The Tutorial includes a way to change the default grub2 menu heading too (something you usually cannot do without recompiling grub2)!

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Create a Restore partition on your UEFI Windows 8\10 PC using CloneZilla

Tutorial 89 on the RMPrepUSB.com website describes how you can add a local Restore image to your PC\Notebook hard disk so that you can take a backup or restore the Windows partition at boot time.

It uses Clonezilla and grub4dos and it is reasonably easy to set up.

However, that tutorial was for MBR\Legacy Windows systems.

Mike A asked me for a new CloneZilla-based Tutorial for UEFI-based Windows systems using GPT partitions.

Monday 18 September 2017

Super Boot CD

JG pointed me to this large 4.8GB 'Hiren's type' ISO which includes 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI boot support as well as containing HBCD MiniXP, Strelec Mini-WinPE 10 and SVUIT Mini-WinPE7, memtest, Windows memory diagnostic, KonBoot, chntpwd, MHDD, Windows Recovery .wim files, some MAC apps and Windows AV apps and linux pmagic. It also uses rEFInd for UEFI boot menus.

You can boot it directly as an .ISO file (use E2B v1.95 and used a file name of SBCD 3.6.1.isolinux), although many menu entries (e.g. mini Windows) do not work correctly. So I converted it to a FAT32 .imgPTN file using the E2B MPI Tool Kit MPI_FAT32 Desktop shortcut. This seems to work well and allows UEFI-booting too.

Mini Win10 (Strelec)
The download link provided on the Facebook page seems very slow though, so you will have to be patient!

Note: The HBCDMenu and DLC1Menu shortcuts on the Mini Win7 Desktop do not work due to missing \DLC1 and \SVUIT folders in the SBCD ISO file.


Saturday 16 September 2017

E2B v1.96a Beta available

Just a couple of small changes (no bugfixes):

v1.96a

  • QRUN.g4b now checks for dynamic/differencing VHDs - only fixed VHDs will boot.
  • Improved GIFtoIMA.cmd script to calculate size of the .IMA file required.
VHDs can be Fixed, Dynamic or Differencing type. E2B can only directly boot the Fixed type of VHD or VHDX file. You can tell by the size which type it is - a 15GB Fixed VHD file will be 15GB in size, the other two types of VHD will usually be a lot less than the 'mounted' size. VHDs created by WinToUSB will work. VHDs created by DiskToVHD will not boot from E2B as they will be Dynamic VHDs.

I have improved the GIFtoIMA.cmd script so that it calculates the required size in KB of the .IMA file needed for animations on the E2B menu. Now you can just press ENTER to accept the suggested size.

Download v1.96a from Alternate Download Areas as usual.


Beware! -  here lies ye Kingdom of Geekland...

Cassini-Huygens (1997-2017)

To mark the end of this remarkable spacecraft, I have made two animations for your E2B menu, which I have taken from the wiki here. Cassini NASA/JET website here.

Cassini-huygens_animation.zip (jpg)
Titan_taken_by_cassini_animation.zip (.bmp)

Sunday 10 September 2017

Thursday 7 September 2017

E2B v1.95e available

Download E2B v1.95e from here.

Change History
v1.95a - Czech F1.cfg help added, bugfix for set NOHELPER=1 not working.
v1.95b - XP ISO install issue of 'Selected disk does not exist' fix added, '0K low memory' error fixed for some XP boot issues.
v1.95c - Increase menu memory from 0x50 sectors to 0xA0 sectors for bigger menus, fix bug when using 'set GRUB_USB=045' in MyE2B.cfg, Greek language folder added, Choose a preset wallpaper.mnu file added (also in PimpMyDrive), 0x50 changed to 0xA0 in many Sample mnu files and language files for very large menus.
v1.95d - New \grldr grub4dos 2017-08-28 (change in memory map handling - bugfix), increase size of FASTLOAD cache file for very large menus (bugfix).
v1.95e - Falcon4 sample menu file updated, grldr 2017-08-30, Sample_MyE2B.cfg file updated, small change to ENG English strings.txt file, BIOS beep code references added to \_ISO\docs\Download URLs folder.

I will release this as v1.95 soon. Please update your E2B drives and report if you spot a problem.

I have also added a few more 800x600 wallpapers to the Alternate Download - Themes Areas: