Both ISOs sit on your Ventoy stick - and then a security violation screen, a black screen, or the image simply refuses to appear. These five Ventoy-specific traps have working fixes.
Ventoy is the natural home for this pair - one stick, both images, pick at boot. But WinPE rescue images trip Ventoy users in predictable ways that normal Linux ISOs never cause: a 0x1A Security Violation screen, an image missing from the menu, or a freeze right after selection. Work through the traps in this order and you will fix the stick, not just the symptom.
Ventoy's bootloader is not signed by Microsoft, so on Secure Boot machines its key must be enrolled once. At the violation screen, press OK to enter MokManager, choose Enroll Key from Disk, browse to the VTOYEFI partition and select the ENROLL_THIS_KEY_IN_MOKMANAGER.cer file, then continue the boot. It is a one-time job per computer. The lazy alternative - switching Secure Boot off in BIOS for the rescue and back on afterwards - also works; pick one and be consistent.
Strelec downloads arrive as a ZIP or split archive that contains the ISO; NHV Boot likewise ships an image file inside its package. Ventoy boots ISO files - if you extracted the archive and copied its folders onto the stick, nothing will appear in the menu. Extract the download on your PC, find the single big ISO inside, and copy that one file to the Ventoy data partition.
These are 3 GB class files. A copy interrupted at 90 percent still shows a filename in the menu and then fails strangely. Re-copy and compare the file size on the USB with the original. Also confirm the ISO sits on Ventoy's large data partition - which is exFAT by default, so the old FAT32 4 GB file limit does not apply. If your stick's data partition is FAT32, another tool formatted it that way; the clean fix is a fresh Ventoy install.
WinPE images boot through a WIM file, and some machines dislike Ventoy's default method. In the Ventoy menu, select the image and try the alternate Wimboot mode offered for WIM-based images. Also update Ventoy itself - its releases steadily fix WinPE boot quirks - and test the same ISO on a second machine before blaming the image; firmware oddities are machine-specific more often than users expect.
A two-year-old Strelec on today's Ventoy, or a brand-new NHV on a Ventoy from 2022, produces failures that vanish when both sides are current. Update Ventoy with its own Update button - it keeps your ISO files - and refresh the PE images while you are at it. If a combination still refuses, build that one image on its own USB with the maker's method as a field spare; the video comparison shows both images running from the same stick when versions are matched.
Boot speed, tools, drivers and the final verdict - the complete Strelec vs NHV Boot comparison, step by step.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. Ventoy's Update option upgrades only the bootloader on its small system partition and leaves your data partition - and every ISO on it - untouched. Reinstalling from scratch is the operation that wipes the stick.
As a second try when normal mode gives a black screen or an early freeze on a particular machine. Menu behaviour differs slightly between firmware, so having two boot paths for the same image is genuinely useful on mixed client hardware.
Usually firmware, not the image - Secure Boot state, 32-bit UEFI, or CSM settings differ per machine. That is why the compatibility guide in this series matters, and why testing your stick on a second PC before a client visit is a professional habit.