notes, tips and tricks on ventoy usage and configuration

ventoy-notes.md

1. injection - inject into runtime after the boot Windows -> WinPE env. Linux -> initramfs env.

   {
   "injection": [
       {
           "image": "/linux.iso",
           "archive": "/archives/compressedDepressed.[zip/tar.[gz/bz2/xz/lzma]]"
       },
       {
           "image": "/windows.iso",
           "archive": "/archives/compressedDepressed.[7z/zip]"
       },       
       {
           "parent": "/windowsStuff",
           "archive": "/driver/win10-driver.zip"
       }
   ]
   }

   note: parent instead of image for an entire family of .iso files which requires something being injected

2. persistence

   {
   "persistence": [   
       {
           "image": "/linuc.iso",
           "backend": [
               "/persistence/linux-1.dat",
               "/persistence/linux-2.dat",
               "/persistence/linux-3.dat",
               "/persistence/linux-4.dat"
           ],
           "autosel": 1,
           "timeout": 69
       }
   ]
   }

   note: use this this will help you create image files you can use later on

   different distros require different labels by default

   in case you want to extend your image, use: this

   other way around, you can provide negative Int to it - this will shrink the image used for persistence

   pre-made images: here

3. WIM download: this and put under /ventoy dir note: this allows to boot directly from disk, use etfsboot.com + bootx64.efi extracted from windows iso file

4. Windows VHD download: this and put under /ventoy dir note: before win10 1803 VHD(x) needs to be NTFS, win10 1809+ can be exFAT, but going with NTFS is safer option

5. Linux vDisk note: use fixed size vhd/vdi or raw disk image most of the distros which use dracut/initramfstool/mkinitcpio should work

   note: some distros require additional grub packages in order to be ran under legacy BIOS mode do NOT use snapshots of VMs

   run this in your Linux VM

   copy vDisk while adding .vtoy suffix

   be careful while updating your entire OS/kernel/driver - this can easily fuck up your OS besides from that, regular usage should be (more or less) painless

6. memdisk set certain .iso files to always use memdisk mode

   {
   "auto_memdisk": [
       "/linux1.iso",
       "/linux2.iso"
   ]
   }

7. DUD - Driver Update Disk certain distros can miss certain drivers for certain hardware, you need to find the right driver and patch the ISO file itself, but why do that, if you can just use DUD?

   {
   "dud": [
       {
           "image": "/linux-image.iso",
           "dud": [
               "/ventoy/driver1.iso",
               "/ventoy/driver2.iso"
           ]
       }
   ]
   }

   I hope I didn't mess up anything and that this works with most of the drivers available

8. password

   {
   "password": {
       "bootpwd": "txt#213769420",
       "menupwd": [
           {
               "parent":"/windows.vhd",
               "pwd":"md5#hash"
           },
           {
               "file":"/linux.iso",
               "pwd":"md5#hash2"
           }
       ]
   }
   }

   isopwd = for all .iso files

   wimpwd = for all .wim files

   imgpwd = for all .img files

   vhdpwd = for all .vhd(x) files

   efipwd = for all .efi files

   vtoypwd = for all .vtoy files

9. general shortcuts

   F1:Memdisk

   F2:Power

   F3:TreeView

   F4:Localboot

   F5:Tools

   F6:ExMenu