Reducing E2B text messages

E2B produces many messages whilst booting and during operation. These can help you to pinpoint possible problems and also make suggestions on how to improve the menu or boot certain payloads correctly. 

Some of these messages may be in English, but others, such as user questions and information will be in the selected menu language. 

If you don’t want to see these messages and auto-suggestion prompts when you run a .ISO file, use a file extension of .isodefault or .isodef – see here for more information. If a payload file has a matching .txt file, this will also suppress any suggestions from E2B for that particular payload file. 

Easy2Boot start-up banner

This start-up banner and delay can be removed by simply adding a file to your E2B drive. Details are in eBook #1:  How to make a multiboot USB drive using Easy2Boot.  

MyE2B.cfg settings

redir

In the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file (first line must be !BAT), you can use a setting of 

set redir=1

 This will reduce the payload enumeration messages and also prevent most of the the QRUN ‘auto-suggest’ messages for .ISO files from being seen. 

Note that this will mean that you will not see any of the informational messages that will inform you about the best file extension to use to fix any possible problems. It will not suppress error messages. 

*Tip: if you want to reduce the file enumeration messages without affecting QRUN auto-suggest, use set redir=1 and set TSUG=6. This will still prompt the user with auto-suggest messages for the best file extension to use (RECOMMENDED).

Note: Using any value for redir and redirp will work for recent versions of E2B (e.g. set redir=1). 

redirp

In the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file (first line must be !BAT), as well as redir, you can also add a setting of 

set redirp=1

 This will suppress all other payload enumeration messages and other ‘progress’ messages too, if used together with redir. Note that this will mean that you will not see any informational messages that will inform you about the best file extension to use or any possible problems. It will not suppress error messages. 

I do not recommend using redirp unless all the payloads on your E2B drive have been fully tested, because it may hide helpful hints, prompts and information from the user. 

NOSUG

In the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file (first line must be !BAT), you can use a setting of 

set NOSUG=1

This will prevent any QRUN ‘auto-suggest’ messages for all types of files from being displayed.
It also suppresses the user prompt when ISOBOOT is used. Tip: You can use TSUG to change the default timeout and behaviour of auto-suggest.

SCROLL LOCK

If you have suppressed E2B auto-suggestions from QRUN.g4b, you can re-enable these messages by turning on SCROLL LOCK when testing a new payload from the menu. 

1. Boot to the E2B menu
2. Select one of the menu entries
3. Press SCROLL LOCK to turn on the Scroll Lock LED
4. Press ENTER to run the selected menu entry…
   QRUN.g4b will now display information, hints and suggestions for the selected payload.

When SCROLL LOCK is on (press the Scroll Lock key once to turn on the keyboard LED), then redir, redirp and NOSUG will be removed/cleared. This allows you to see all E2B messages when a payload is executed. This is useful if you have used one or more of these settings in your MyE2B.cfg file but wish to see the E2B messages when running a new payload file if it does not work as required. SCROLL LOCK will be cleared by E2B once QRUN.g4b has been run. 

AUTOCSM (for .imgPTN files)

If you use: set AUTOCSM=1 in your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file, when a user selects any .imgPTN file, they will not be warned or prompted to switch partitions – it will just immediately switch partitions and load the CSM menu. 

Tip: You can use a file extension of .imgPTNAUTO instead (just add ‘AUTO’ to any type of .imgPTNxxxx file extension). 

Other MyE2B.cfg settings

You can try one of these three settings in your MyE2B.cfg file (examples taken from Sample_MyE2B.cfg)… 

# Blank screen until Main Menu, no other text
call Fn.70 0 ;; clear ;; call Fn.5 0 128 ;; set redirp=> nul ;; set redir=> nul
 
# Use this line to display the background image as early as possible
call Fn.70 3 ;; set redir=> nul 
 
# Use this line to display the background image as early as possible with no startup messages except an initial quick 'Please wait...' message
call Fn.70 3 ;; set redir=> nul ;; set redirp=> nul ;; debug -1 ;; pause --wait=1 Please wait... ;; debug 0

Patching grub4dos

When grub4dos boots, you may see several text messages generated by the grub4dos boot process before E2B is loaded. It is possible to patch grub4dos so that no grub4dos boot messages are seen. Cut and paste the following 4 lines into your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file:

# Silent MBR boot of stage 1.5 grub4dos (works for both 0.4.5c and 0.4.6) - one reboot is required for it to permanently take affect.
call /_ISO/docs/PatchMyMBR > nul
# Silent startup of grub4dos - no diagnostic/info messages (only works for 0.4.6a by changing debug msg=2 to debug msg=0) - permanently changes /grldr files 
cat --locate=\x02 --replace=\x00 --skip=0x2073 --length=1 /grldr > nul

This modifies the /grldr file and the MBR of the E2B drive each time it boots to E2B.

If it slows down booting, you can remove the lines once they have been run once and have taken affect.

If you update E2B and the \grldr file, you will have to add these lines in again to re-patch the \grldr file again.