XDA Developers writer Abhishek Kumar Mishra described this workflow on November 3, 2026. He pairs a Ventoy USB stick with netboot.xyz so he doesn't have to store every installer and rescue ISO locally. His account is useful, but it is one person's setup. The details below separate his results from what the netboot.xyz documentation supports.
The problem: a multiboot drive fills up
Mishra's Ventoy drive had about 28 GB free. Ubuntu, Windows 11, Windows 10 and two MX Linux releases took up most of the space. He also points out that ISOs go stale, so you have to re-download them as new versions ship.
Network booting is his answer. netboot.xyz is a small iPXE bootloader that opens to a menu of network installers, live distros and rescue tools, fetched from upstream over the network. The idea is that one small boot image replaces a pile of full ISOs.
How netboot.xyz works
netboot.xyz lets you PXE boot various operating system installers or utilities from a single tool over the network. The main menu has these entries:
- Linux Network Installs
- Desktop & Live Distros
- Security & Forensics
- Utilities & Rescue
- Hypervisors & Storage
- Windows (WIM)
- netboot.xyz Endpoints
- iPXE Shell
It supports 32-bit and 64-bit x86 and arm64, in both Legacy and UEFI BIOS modes. Which entries appear depends on the platform you booted from.
Network installers versus live images
The project's documentation describes two different kinds of entry:
- Network installers. Where a project ships a network-bootable installer, netboot.xyz loads a minimal installer kernel. Packages are then downloaded as needed. The docs call this typically the faster route.
- Live distros. These are heavier. The docs say they can use a lot of bandwidth, and that iPXE generally doesn't boot ISOs directly very well. The project therefore tracks upstream releases, extracts them and re-releases them with initrd changes to make them iPXE-friendly.
So netboot.xyz is not simply streaming an untouched ISO from the internet. That matters if you assume it can replace any ISO in your collection.
What Mishra found
- Setup. He launched netboot.xyz from his Ventoy drive. Ethernet didn't configure automatically for him. He had to enter an IP address, subnet mask, DNS server and gateway by hand before the menu loaded.
- Cleanup. He deleted the common rescue ISOs from the Ventoy drive. These covered tools such as GParted, MemTest86+, Clonezilla and ShredOS. He kept Hiren's BootCD PE.
- Speed. A Debian install took about 45 minutes, both in a virtual machine and on an old laptop with a hard drive and Ethernet. This is a single test with no measured network speed, so don't treat it as a benchmark.
- Memory. He says the tool works with 1 GB or more, and that some graphical rescue environments need over 4 GB. I couldn't confirm those figures in the documentation I reviewed.
- Fallback. He still keeps one Linux ISO so he has troubleshooting tools if the network is down or misconfigured.
Windows is the catch
Windows users should read this part closely. The project's own OS table lists Microsoft Windows as user supplied media only in the sense that you must provide the files. Mishra also found it inconvenient that Windows needs a download URL.
The project's Windows guide shows how much work that involves. It uses the Docker container and needs these pieces:
- A Samba (SMB) share with the Windows 11 ISO extracted.
- A Windows PE image as an ISO.
- The netboot.xyz Docker container set up and running.
The guide says WinPE is used so you can preload any drivers the target machine needs. VirtIO under Proxmox is one example. You can also set the Windows base URL in a local variables file so you don't type it on every boot.
That is a lab or homelab workflow, not a replacement for a Windows 11 ISO on a stick. For a technician who wants to install Windows on a stranger's PC, keeping the Windows ISO in Ventoy is the sensible choice. Mishra reaches the same conclusion.
Secure Boot and other caveats
- Secure Boot. A third-party Windows 11 walkthrough from Linkarzu reports that netboot.xyz doesn't support Secure Boot. It cites the project FAQ, which says the iPXE binaries aren't signed by Microsoft. You would have to disable Secure Boot in firmware to use it. That blogger's setup also found that only some of the boot file types worked, so test with your own hardware.
- No HTTPS by default. The GitHub README says default iPXE builds don't have HTTPS compiled in. HTTPS requires a build with it enabled.
- USB keyboards. The README describes legacy USB builds that leave out USB NIC drivers. Use them if your USB keyboard doesn't work with the standard bootloaders.
- Ventoy isn't the documented route. The official USB instructions have you write the netboot.xyz image to a USB key. They warn that this overwrites everything on the key. Launching it from inside Ventoy is Mishra's own approach. I didn't find it in the official docs, so test it before you rely on it.
A hybrid setup for IT pros
The evidence supports a hybrid approach rather than dropping Ventoy:
| Task | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora installs with reliable networking | netboot.xyz |
| Common rescue tools such as Clonezilla or GParted | netboot.xyz, if the target has network access |
| Windows 10 or 11 installs on arbitrary machines | Local ISO on Ventoy |
| Offline or broken-network recovery | Local ISO or Hiren's-style toolkit on Ventoy |
| Secure Boot machines you can't reconfigure | Local media |
If you want local availability, the project supports self-hosting with Ansible or Docker. It also supports custom menus. That takes server setup, so it suits homelabs more than a casual USB kit.
Bottom line
netboot.xyz can free up space on a multiboot drive, especially for Linux installers and rescue utilities. The costs are a dependence on the network, possible manual IP configuration, no Secure Boot support, and a clunky Windows workflow. Keep your Windows ISOs and one offline recovery environment on the stick, and treat netboot.xyz as an add-on to Ventoy.