New Update Ventoy: create bootable USB media that uses ISO images

CyberTech

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When you want to create a bootable USB device, you may use programs like Rufus for that or tools provided by the developers of operating systems. What these tools do, usually, is to extract an ISO image to the USB device and make the device bootable in the process.

Ventoy is a new software application for Linux and Windows that does things a bit differently. Instead of extracting an ISO image, it allows you to place the actual ISO images on the USB device so that you may boot from them directly. The program supports multiple ISO images that you can place on a USB device and uses GRUB as the boot manager.

You can transfer multiple ISO images to the device once the Ventoy structure has been created on the device using an installer. It is possible to place Windows and Linux images on the device to boot from them whenever the need arises. Updating of ISO images is a breeze as well as you simply replace an ISO image with another.

ventoy


Installation is pretty straightforward on Windows. Just download the application archive from the developer website and extract it. Not that Windows may throw a Smartscreen warning when you execute it.

All it takes then is to select an USB device using the device selector at the top and to hit the Update button to start the process. Ventoy formats the entire disk and erase all content on it but warns about it. The application creates a FAT and an exFAT partition on the device.

Once the initial installation has been done, place ISO images on the partition. Ventoy will pick these up automatically when you boot it to provide you with a selection menu. Just select the operating system that you want to boot and wait for the boot process to complete.


Closing Words

Ventoy is an interesting program for Windows and Linux users who work with one or multiple ISO images regularly. It can be used to place multiple Windows client and server ISO images and/or Linux images on the same device to boot from them. For Windows, one could place Windows 8.1 and various Windows 10 ISO images on the device to boot from them and start the installation. The developer has a list of tested ISO images on the site that includes all current versions of Windows as well as numerous Linux distributions.

New ISO images can be placed on the device or you may replace existing ones, e.g. to update a Linux distribution ISO to the latest version. Please note that the full path to the ISO images may not contain spaces or non-ASCII characters as it won't be detected properly if it does.

Source
 

CyberTech

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2020/05/16 --- 1.0.10 release

1. Add new filesystem type support for the first partition (ntfs/udf/xfs/ext2/ext3/ext4) see Notes
2. Fixed a memory map bug introduced from the beginning of the version
3. Fixed a bug for booting HBCD_PE (Hirens boot CD) in Legacy BIOS mode
4. Fixed a bug for booting AcronisTrueImage in Legacy BIOS mode
5. New iso support

  • EasyU_v3.5.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
  • USM.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
  • ipfire-2.25.x86_64-full-core144.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
 

Vasudev

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Hmmmm........... where to get Windows 10 Pro latest iso image for free?

I need to create a bootable USB drive just in case
Why not use UUP based downloader from MDL forums for WIndows UUP Dump and OfficeRTool for office 2016+. Files will be cab format and has multiple editions in a single file which eliminates the need for multiple ISO/IMG.
 

CyberTech

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2020/05/23 --- 1.0.11 release

1. Add a new feature for persistence support, Ubuntu/MX/LinuxMint/elementary ... see Notes
2. Add a global control plugin Notes
3. Optimization for blocklist process in Ext2/Ext3/Ext4
4. Optimization for Ventoy2Disk.sh
5. New iso support
tails-amd64-4.6.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
 

CyberTech

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2020/05/30 --- 1.0.12 release
  1. Add a new feature to directly boot wim files see Notes
  2. auto installation plugin update Notes
    1. Expand the configuration, now you can specify more than one auto installation scripts for one ISO file
    2. Add a prompt for the iso with auto installation config, you can choose whether to use the auto installation script and which one to use for this time
  3. persistence plugin update Notes
    1. Expand the configuration, now you can specify more than one persistence backend image files for one ISO file
    2. Add a prompt for the iso with persistence config, you can choose whether to use the persistence image and which one to use for this time
  4. Change the 1st partition active and 2nd partition inactive by default (compatibility improvement).
  5. Move the position of the red Memdisk tip to a more prominent position
  6. Add a return parent directory item when in TreeView mode
  7. Add a VTOY_DEFAULT_SEARCH_ROOT option in global control plugin to specify the root path of the iso files.
  8. Change the style of F2 power menu
  9. Fix a bug about Ventoy2Disk.exe can't start when there is a DataRAM Ramdisk in the system.
  10. Files with size less than 32KB will be filted by default
  11. Fix a bug about wrong file size in TreeView mode with NTFS/XFS
  12. Files with space or Non Ascii charactors in name will be shown but with unsupported message when you boot it.
  13. Optimization for Ventoy2Disk.sh
  14. Optimization for arch linux boot
  15. New iso support
    • android-x86_64-9.0-r2.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • manjaro-xfce-20.0.1-200511-linux56.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
 

CyberTech

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Does it support Secure Boot?

For more information

About Secure Boot in UEFI mode
 

CyberTech

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  • 2020/06/14 --- 1.0.13 release
  1. Add support for N in 1 type of Windows/WinPE ISO files
  2. Add menu alias plugin to set an alias name for the ISO file, see Notes
  3. Add display_mode option in theme plugin, see Notes (issue #166)
  4. Add F4 localboot menu to boot OS in local disk
  5. Add F5 debug menu to check the plugin json configuration(theme,persistence,autoinstall...) and for other debug option
  6. Add a workaround for Legacy BIOS access limitation, see Notes
  7. Optimization for UEFI boot process (for No bootfile found for UEFI error)
  8. Optimization for Sergei Strelec's WinPE (external tools available)
  9. Optimization for boot process of archlinux and distros based on it (eg. archbang/Archman/acrhlab...)
  10. Optimization for boot process of Fedora
  11. Fix a bug about auto install and persistence configuration when VTOY_DEFAULT_SEARCH_ROOT is set
  12. Fix a bug about halt function in F2 power menu
  13. Fix a bug about F2 & F3 menu nesting
  14. Fix a bug about boot Kaspersky krd.iso
  15. Fix a bug about boot distros based on rhel7/CentOS7 with a kickstart cfg
  16. Fix a iPXE build error with GCC 10 (issue #201)
  17. Change the EFI partition label to VTOYEFI (issue #175)
  18. New iso support
    • Windows10x86x64.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • WinPE10_8_Sergei_Strelec_x86_x64_2019.12.28_English.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • Porteus-Kiosk-5.0.0-x86_64.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • clear-33300-live-desktop.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • Calculate Linux cldx-20-x86_64.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • Mageia-7.1-Live-Xfce-x86_64.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • linuxmint-20-cinnamon-64bit-beta.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • foxclone40-02.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-32-1.6.iso (Legacy + UEFI)

Download link
 
Last edited:

CyberTech

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  • 2020/06/25 --- 1.0.14 release
  1. When install Ventoy you can reserve some disk space, see Notes
  2. New feature to boot .efi file directly in UEFI mode. (for cases like firmware upgrade, hardware diagnosis ...)
  3. Auto skip Press any key to boot from CD or DVD... prompt when booting Windows/WinPE ISO files (Legacy + UEFI)
  4. Add Menu Class plugin to show icon in boot menu, see Notes
  5. Add VTOY_MENU_TIMEOUT and VTOY_DEFAULT_IMAGE options in global control plugin, see Notes
  6. Add fonts option in theme plugin to load customized font, see Notes
  7. Fixed a bug about repository group missing with RHEL6
  8. Add 'Search and boot Grub4dos' option in F4 Localboot menu
  9. New iso support (total 300+)
    • guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • systemrescuecd-amd64-6.1.5.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • adelie-live-x86_64-1.0-rc1-20200202.iso (Legacy)
    • adelie-full-x86_64-1.0-rc1-20200202.iso (Legacy)
    • OviOS_Linux_3.02_20190821.iso (Legacy)
 

Vasudev

Level 33
Verified
Nov 8, 2014
2,247
  • 2020/06/25 --- 1.0.14 release
  1. When install Ventoy you can reserve some disk space, see Notes
  2. New feature to boot .efi file directly in UEFI mode. (for cases like firmware upgrade, hardware diagnosis ...)
  3. Auto skip Press any key to boot from CD or DVD... prompt when booting Windows/WinPE ISO files (Legacy + UEFI)
  4. Add Menu Class plugin to show icon in boot menu, see Notes
  5. Add VTOY_MENU_TIMEOUT and VTOY_DEFAULT_IMAGE options in global control plugin, see Notes
  6. Add fonts option in theme plugin to load customized font, see Notes
  7. Fixed a bug about repository group missing with RHEL6
  8. Add 'Search and boot Grub4dos' option in F4 Localboot menu
  9. New iso support (total 300+)
    • guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • systemrescuecd-amd64-6.1.5.iso (Legacy + UEFI)
    • adelie-live-x86_64-1.0-rc1-20200202.iso (Legacy)
    • adelie-full-x86_64-1.0-rc1-20200202.iso (Legacy)
    • OviOS_Linux_3.02_20190821.iso (Legacy)
Any tips for moving from AiOBoot to Ventoy? It seems rEFInd and other nice tools are unavailable.
 

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