I’ve learned to keep a collection of useful Windows tools and repair environments. They helped me restart, troubleshoot, and — if necessary — fix a struggling Windows installation. This can be related to hardware issues, Windows update going bad, device or driver issues, and more.
I keep all of these tools on a single USB drive which I refer to as the bootable Windows repair drive. Interested in building your own? You just need a medium-sized USB drive (about 256GB) and the right software, and it works with Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and even 11 installations.
My technique relies on a special basic tool called Ventoy, along with a collection of ISO files from which Ventoy will boot the Windows PC. The first part of the story introduces and explains Ventoy. The second introduces a carefully curated collection of ISO files, with brief explanations of what they can do, what they contain, and where to download them.
Ventoy provides the foundation
Ventoy is an open source project found on GitHub. It describes itself as a means of creating bootable USB drives that can boot to any of a number of file types, including: