How to add full installs of Windows, Ubuntu and FreeDOS to your Ventoy drive

Feats of this guide

  • Fully functional Windows, Ubuntu (or Debian) and DOS on one USB drive in addition to Ventoy
  • All boot both physically and virtually
  • All can receive and install updates
  • All OS keep their data in easy to manage VHD files

How it works

  • Native boot is done via a custom ventoy_grub.cfg, accessed via F6 in the Ventoy boot menu
    • Windows VHD boot is provided by Ventoy and Microsoft
    • Debian VHD boot is scripted in this guide utilizing initramfs-tools or dracut
    • DOS VHD boot is provided by grub4dos (actively maintained fork)
  • Virtual boot is done via VirtualBox (other Hypervisors should work as well)

I only need X. Can I skip parts?

Yes. Just don't skip the first step where the partitioning is done.

VirtualBox

Download and install VirtualBox. It is used extensively in this guide.

All VMs are recommended to have 4 CPU cores and 4 GiB memory minimum.

Enable Devices > Shared Clipboard > Bidirectional clipboard in all VMs for comfort.

Remove Hyper-V components (temporarily) from Windows for best performance.

For debugging and testing, also refer to How to boot USB drives in VirtualBox

Can I use Hyper-V instead? VMWare Workstation? QEMU?

As long as fixed-size VHD files are produced, anything should work.

Roadmap