Sunday 11 June 2017

Add bootmgr to your E2B drive

As you may know, E2B does not include bootmgr for legal reasons.

The Make_E2B.exe and the 'make' scripts look for the correct Win 8.1 version of bootmgr on your Windows system and will copy it to the E2B drive for you.

If you don't have the correct version, the E2B 'make' script will warn you that, in order to boot Windows .VHD and .WIM files, you will need to add it.

Note: E2B v1.93+ now will download the bootmgr file automatically when you run Make_E2B.exe.

Add_Bootmgr_to_E2B_drives

\_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Add_Bootmgr_to_E2B_drives.cmd will automatically add bootmgr to the \_ISO\e2b\grub\DPMS\NTBOOT.MOD folder of any E2B drive that you have connected when you run it. Internet access is required.

It takes just a second or so to run.


Note: The new Make_E2B script will automatically download bootmgr for you and put it on the E2B USB drive in the correct folder.

See here for more details on GWT.

E2B v1.93h available

v.1.93h has just a few small tweaks + latest grub4dos. + bug in ChocBox.cmd fixed.

One small change in SDI_CHOCO is that you now do not need to edit the SDI_CHOCO.cmd file when you copy it, to change the name of the configuration folder that you want it to use.

For example: if you want to make a new configuration called 'NEW', then you just copy and rename the SDI_CHOCO.cmd file and the SDI_CHOCO folder to NEW.cmd and NEW (folder).

The code in NEW.cmd will automatically look for a configuration folder of the same name as the .cmd file.

So your modified XML file will call NEW.CMD which will automatically use the NEW folder as the configuration folder. The files in the NEW folder:

  • MySpecialize.cmd             - runs after Snappy driver installer before reboot
  • MySetupComplete.cmd     - runs before OOBE
  • MyStartup.cmd                  - runs after OOBE on first user login (which can be automatic)

will control the installation of additional drivers and apps, etc. and the .TAG files will control other
features:
  • NoInternet.TAG - Internet connectivity will not be checked, msoobe will not be called to initialize n/w during Specialize
  • NoChoco.TAG - choco will not be downloaded from internet (but can still be installed Offline)
  • NoSDI.TAG - The Snappy Driver Installer will not run (useful if you install your own drivers)
  • NoWSUS.TAG - WSUS Offline Updater will not run
  • OfflineChoco.TAG - \_ISO\WINDOWS\INSTALLS\CHOCBOX folder is copied to C:\DRIVERS\CHOCBOX and Chocolatey is installed directly from E2B drive
  • NoBeep.TAG - do not beep the speaker (v1.93+)
  • NoSpeak.TAG - don't tell me what you are doing (v1.93+)

Read more: http://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-files/windows-install-isos/sdi-choco/

Removable v. Fixed 

I have added a new page to the E2B site  here  about why the type of USB drive you use for E2B matters.

Saturday 10 June 2017

How to add the UBCD4WIN ISO to E2B

The UBCD4WIN ISO is now quite old and development has been discontinued and the website is no longer available.

UBCD4WIN miniXP (BartPE) lacks drivers for modern systems and so is really only suitable for older systems and chipsets.



Friday 9 June 2017

Offline Chocolatey for Win7 installs

I was asked yesterday (using online 'Chat') about using the E2B SDI_Choco offline feature to install Windows 7.

The problem here is that Chocolatey requires .Net 4 Framework and this is not included in Windows 7.

If you download the standalone install package for .Net 4 and try to install it, it requires a reboot before it will work. However, we cannot reboot during the Specialize pass or Windows Setup will complain about it when it reboots and will not proceed.

Equally, we cannot allow a reboot during MyStartup.cmd because this only runs once on first user login and so the code to install the offline choco apps will never run.

The solution was to install the .Net 4 package at the end of MySetupComplete.cmd when a reboot is imminent anyway.

I have added the necessary instructions to the Offline Choco page on the E2B website here under the Requirements heading.

If you have any questions, you can chat with me by clicking on the chat icon on the E2B website.

Click to chat

Thursday 8 June 2017

Old PC won't boot from E2B USB drive (flashing cursor)

To ensure that your E2B USB flash drive will boot from as many systems as possible, it should have the following characteristics:

  1. Have the boot partition marked as Active (bootable)
  2. Have grub4dos boot code in both the first sector (master boot record or MBR) and the first sector of the first partition (partition boot record or PBR)
  3. Have two primary partitions in the MBR partition table
  4. Have all boot files and E2B files within 137GB (128GiB) from the beginning of the drive
If you use the Make_E2B.exe GUI to make your E2B USB drive, then it will have these properties already.

It has been rumoured that some BIOSes will only boot from a USB FAT partition and not from an NTFS partition (although I have never seen this personally and I have never had any specific confirmation of this phenomenon!).

However, even if your drive is correctly made, some early PCs with USB 1.0 and early USB 2.0 ports may not boot to grub4dos\E2B.

Wednesday 7 June 2017

E2B v1.93g available

Changes from 1.93f are:
  • latest \grldr grub4dos version
  • UUID and volume label of ISOs now displayed briefly in some cases
  • NoSpeak.tag and NoBeep.tag files can be used with SDI_CHOCO to suppress talking and beeping
Now you can stop SDI_Choco speaking to you and also stop it beeping by adding two tag files to your configuration folder.

Please update your existing E2B drive(s) with 1.93g and let me have your feedback.

Note that in the final v1.93 version, I will delete the chocolatey.nupkg file from the \_ISO\WINDOWS\INSTALLS\INSTALLCHOCO folder and make the file available as a separate download. This will prevent a later E2B update from overwriting your chocolatey package and also reduce the size of the E2B download back to 17MB.

P.S. if you use ChocBox.cmd, there is a small bug. It says to use the command
choco install %appx% --source C:\DRIVERS\choco -y -r
but this should be
choco install %appx% --source C:\DRIVERS\chocbox -y -r


Change History

v1.93a - Addition of offline choco package support for SDI_CHOCO function (adds 6MB)
v1.93b - Improved \_ISO\docs\Chocbox\ChocBox.cmd for making offline choco packages.
v1.93c - GIFtoIMA script and improved ChocBox.cmd script
v1.93d - improved GIFtoIMA script to delete files > 0255.bmp and save as BMP or JPG, new grub4dos 0.4.6a
v1.93e - new Snappy Driver Installer Origin version, latest grub4dos 0.4.6a 2017-05-29, QRUN.g4b small change to .imgPTN so if second *. image file present it will get a partition type number of 7 if grub4dos does not give it one, improved ChocBox.cmd (now can get specific app version)
v1.93f - Switch_E2B.exe v1.0.16 hidden file fix, new Chocolatey version 0.10.6.1, openmandriva ISO sample mnu file
v1.93g - latest grub4dos, NoSpeak.tag and NoBeep.tag for SDI_CHOCO

What is the best way to speed up my notebook?

A friend recently asked me this question.

Saturday 3 June 2017

How to super-hide E2B files from Windows Explorer

A simple way to hide an ISO, .imgPTN or other payload files on an E2B drive is to simply set the Hidden attribute (right-click - Properties - tick Hidden - OK). But you knew that already right?...

But what if the user has 'Show hidden files' enabled in Explorer? He will still be able to see the files - so how can we prevent this?

Well, to make the file super-hidden (hidden+system), simply make sure the filename starts with a ~ symbol (as well as having the Hidden attribute set).

e.g. \_ISO\LINUX\~kali.iso

Explorer will not show the file, even if the user has 'Show hidden files' enabled (you may need to press F5 to refresh Explorer after you have changed the name, before it will disappear).

The user (and you) will still be able to see the file if  'Hide protected operating system files' is unticked however, but using ~ is easier than using the attrib +h +s command on the command line because you can add a ~ using Explorer.

WARNING: DO NOT USE SWITCH_E2B.exe on a ~xxx.imgPTN file - it will corrupt the drive! This bug is fixed in SWITCH_E2B v1.0.16.

Of course, this won't stop linux or the  dir /ah command from listing the files, but it is a simple tweak and will fool most Windows users.

Reference: Raymond Chen from here.

Adding OpenMandriva to E2B

The OpenMandriva ISO does not boot as a .ISO file when simply placed on an E2B drive.



Instead we need to make a .mnu file for it and specify the Volume Label of the ISO.

Here is an example menu:

Friday 2 June 2017

E2B v1.93e available

Change History
v1.93a - Addition of offline choco package support for SDI_CHOCO function
v1.93b - Improved \_ISO\docs\Chocbox\ChocBox.cmd for making offline choco packages.
v1.93c - GIFtoIMA script and improved ChocBox.cmd script
v1.93d - improved GIFtoIMA script to delete files > 0255.bmp and save as BMP or JPG, new grub4dos 0.4.6a
v1.93e - new Snappy Driver Installer Origin version, latest grub4dos 0.4.6a 2017-05-29, QRUN.g4b small change to .imgPTN so if second *. image file present it will get a partition type number of 7 if grub4dos does not give it one, improved ChocBox.cmd (now can get specific app version)