Multiple Windows Installers on One Flash Drive?

[BotenRedWolf]

With the advent of EFI and the fact it boots from neat little files as opposed to however it was before in a technical sense, is it possible to put, for example, a Windows 7, Windows 8, and a Windows 10 installer all on the same flash drive and just choose at boot depending on what computer I happen to be fixing or building at the time? I've got this gigantic 128GB flash drive and this popped into my head...

 

[JBmorris]

Try EasyBCD

Hi, so you want a multi boot flash drive?
Well, one program you could use and try to accomplish what your after is EasyBCD... It allows you to make your USB bootable w/o formatting.. I think theres a feature where you could be edit the boot configuration and be able to boot from more than one iso? i don't remember. You could try it out though.

DL: (actually, sf does not allow links to other sites. )

if it says register, there's no need. Just click download.

 

[BotenRedWolf]

Yeah, basically, but I'd also like to include a Linux distro or two, forgot to mention that though. I'll take a look at that quick though, although if I'm not mistaken that sounds more like an MBR style boot, which is not what I'm after. Again this is me getting ahead of myself, haven't read up on EasyBCD yet.

btw, howdy neighbor!

 

[JBmorris]

Hmm. I am not sure if it works for Linux distributions..

 

[FerchogtX]

Easy2Boot
This thing is just marvelous, just download the file they reccomend in this site, and read the guide, it's as easy to unpack the zip file, running the cmd file they point out and selecting the options everytime you are prompted. Then you add payload (ISO) files and test on a real system.

I did mine with this, it's just a 16 GB drive with W7 (x86-64), W10 (x86-64) and XP SP3 (Yes, sometimes I just need that one XD), works wonders!

Ah! It works for Linux distros too, you can have Windows and Linux distros in the same drive without problems.

 

[GokAy]

Agreed on Easy2Boot as well. Used to use YUMI but changed to Easy2Boot. However, with these multi-boot USBs, UEFI is a hit and miss as far as I know. They should (perhaps not all) work but with some effort.

Also UEFI can't boot from NTFS. So your iso files must be 4GB max (limitation of FAT). If not, two options are:
- split the wim image and re-compress to iso
- partition USB with 2 partitions, 1 with FAT and other NTFS.

 

[FerchogtX]

Agreed on Easy2Boot as well. Used to use YUMI but changed to Easy2Boot. However, with these multi-boot USBs, UEFI is a hit and miss as far as I know. They should (perhaps not all) work but with some effort.

Also UEFI can't boot from NTFS. So your iso files must be 4GB max (limitation of FAT). If not, two options are:
- split the wim image and re-compress to iso
- partition USB with 2 partitions, 1 with FAT and other NTFS.

Also, you need to use imgPTN files, so they retain FAT32 files system, while being stored on a NTFS partition...