One USB stick, every rescue system you own — that is the upgrade path most Hiren users are taking. Ventoy turns a single stick into a menu of ISOs, so Hiren PE, a modern WinPE and your Windows setup files all ride together.
Upgrading does not mean abandoning Hiren. Ventoy is a bootloader, not a toolkit — you install it on a stick once, and from then on, adding a rescue system means copying one ISO file onto the stick. No extraction, no re-flashing, ever. Here is the migration, step by step.
Size decides everything, because the giants are heavy. Hiren PE needs about 3 GB; a modern WinPE several more; MediCat roughly 22 GB; a Windows setup ISO another 6 GB. A 64 GB stick is the comfortable minimum, 128 GB is better, and a reasonably fast one — a slow stick makes every PE feel broken.
Everything on the stick is erased when Ventoy is installed. Rescue anything on it first.
Download Ventoy from its official website only, run Ventoy2Disk, select the correct USB drive — check the letter twice — and click Install. Ventoy formats the stick and creates its boot system plus a large data partition you use like a normal drive.
Open the stick's data partition and copy the ISO files onto it as ordinary files: Hiren BootCD PE from hirensbootcd.org, one modern WinPE such as Sergei Strelec or MediCat from its official source, and a Windows setup ISO from Microsoft. No extraction, no special folders required.
Boot the stick and Ventoy lists every ISO in a menu. Choose one, and it starts as if that ISO had the stick to itself.
If Secure Boot support was enabled, a protected laptop shows a security warning on the very first boot. Follow Ventoy's on-screen path: press OK, choose Enroll Key from File, select the key file Ventoy placed on the stick (it is named with ENROLL in the EFI folders), and confirm. The machine remembers it — that laptop never asks again.
This enrolment is per machine and takes under a minute. It is the price of keeping Secure Boot switched on, and it is a fair one.
This is where the migration pays you back forever. A toolkit releases a new version? Delete the old ISO file, copy the new one. Ventoy itself has an Update button in Ventoy2Disk that upgrades the bootloader while keeping every file on the data partition.
The video builds the complete rescue stick — Hiren and the new WinPE tools together — and boots it on real hardware.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. Ventoy2Disk's Update mode upgrades only the bootloader and preserves the data partition with all your ISO files. Only a fresh Install formats the stick — read the button label carefully before clicking.
It can list and start it on BIOS-era machines. But 15.2 still cannot boot UEFI-only laptops or see NVMe drives — Ventoy delivers the file, it cannot modernise what is inside it. Carry the PE edition for modern work.
For almost everyone, yes — one stick to carry, one stick to keep updated, and every tool one boot menu away. Professionals who lend sticks out or work on two machines at once keep a second stick, usually a plain Hiren-only one.