Ventoy
A New Bootable USB Solution
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files.
With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again
you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.
You can copy many iso files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them
Both Legacy BIOS and UEFI are supported in the same way. 260+ ISO files are tested
A "Ventoy Compatible" concept is introduced by ventoy, which can help to support any ISO file.
this amazing app to create bootable usb drive is the best
supports windows & linux
Is there any advantage to this over Rufus, Unetbootin, and YUMI (3 similar tools we already have)?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
The big advantage, as far as I can see is that the tools creates a bootable menu which changes when an ISO file is added to a specific folder. You don't have at install, just drag and drop.
This feature is really great.
Is it Open Source? I couldn't find a link to source in the website hence I wonder.
The License is GPLv3+ see: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_license.html
However I don't see how this 'system' could possibly be used via the PortableApps Platform as it has to be installed on a dedicated bootable disk according to the developer's own information. See: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_disk_layout.html
Just tested it today and I think it behaves almost the same as Rufus. The app will ask which drive to format, you can choose between MBR (default) and GPT partition, and after the drive was formatted I can simply copy some (supported) ISO files to the drive. What makes you think it can't be used on PortableApps Platform? The app is already portable too (besides some registry entries set by Windows itself when a new drive was detected).
Because, by the Developer's own description, the primary purpose of this app is solely to set up a dedicated USB Drive (which which includes complete erasure and repartitioning of that Drive), after which the software on that drive is self-updating and any ISOs are managed by the user manually copying to the appropriate partition.
I didn't intend to imply it couldn't be used (with care) via the PortableApps Platform - That was poorly worded by me, but my personal view is that there is little purpose in devoting the scarce and valuable development time needed to creating and maintaining a PortableApps version of any app that is already natively portable; and which is unlikely to be needed regularly, i.e. once VenToy has been used to create the dedicated usb drive it's no longer needed; which is totally different to Rufus and other similar apps, which do have to be regularly used to process any new iso images. This is not a criticism of the VenToy software, which does appear to offer a very interesting option for directly/regularly testing new ISOs without any of the pre-processing other solutions need and it's something I might well use on a dedicated external USB SSD/Hard Drive, but probably not on a 'Thumb Drive'.
It's true that once Ventoy is 'installed' on a USB drive, we probably won't need it anymore (in a medium/long term). Adding it to PortableApps Platform is not too necessary since the app itself is already portable and won't be used as often as Rufus. Like you said, poor wording.
Thank you for posting this. This will be very helpful for me as I frequently udpate my Linux, Windows and utilities ISOs.
I have to give another shoutout to Ventoy. In my experience, it is better than Rufus for the following reasons:
- When you update, Ventoy doesn't need to redo the whole process of formating the usb like Rufus.
- Install Ventoy onto the usb once, then you can just copy whatever and how many boot images over to the usb. Super easy and fast.
- Most importantly, Rufus for some reason destroyed a few of my usb (unrecognized by Windows, cannot fixed to this day). Ventoy so far has not.
Really hope Ventoy can be included.
When I run the Ventoy app the GUI comes up, however if I try to run it under PortableApps it throws an error "Please run under the correct directory!"
I've released Ventoy Portable as an officially supported app: https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/ventoy-portable
It even has the x86, x64, and ARM64 versions included and automatically used for best compatibility.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That is awesome! Thank you!
Someone on another board mentioned about VentoyPlugson.exe and VentoyPlugson_X64.exe missing from the PortableApps menu for Ventoy.
I have been able to add them but was wondering if it's possible to add just VentoyPlugson (so there would only be 2 icons) to the menu and have it detect and run the proper one for whichever architecture like it is for the main app.
Can I upload it somewhere and maybe someone can perfect it?