What Vector Toolset is
Vector Toolset is a branded, self-contained rescue kit for IT work, built onto a single USB stick. You build it once and then use the same stick two ways. Boot a machine straight into it, into a WinPE environment that comes up in the Vector launcher; or plug it into a running Windows, Mac, or Linux system and reach the same tools from a folder.
The goal is a diagnostic and repair kit that stays calm to use and is built the way an IT specialist would actually want one, so a tech doesn't have to assemble a stick from scratch every time.
What makes it Vector
- One launcher, aware of where it is. The same app is the shell in WinPE and a normal window on a live system, and it only offers the tools that make sense in each.
- Bring your own tools. A manifest defines what goes on the stick, so it holds exactly the tools you choose and nothing you don't.
- No binaries in the repo. The whole thing is reproducible from source and license-clean; you supply the tool binaries you're licensed to use, and they never live in the project.
Under the hood
Vector is as much an engineering build as a toolkit. What goes into a stick:
- A WinPE image built and customized with the Windows ADK and DISM, with driver injection and a WPF app set as the boot shell.
- A branded GRUB2 multiboot layer built from scratch that chainloads WinPE and loopback-boots Linux tool ISOs, on both BIOS and UEFI.
- A C# WPF launcher on .NET Framework 4.8 that runs as a locked kiosk shell inside WinPE and as an ordinary app on live Windows, driven by a JSON tool manifest.
- A guarded USB deploy: GPT partitioning into an EFI system partition and an exFAT data partition, with a wipe path that refuses a non-USB or system disk and survives Windows' removable-disk auto-init race.
The full chain is proven on real hardware: the themed GRUB menu, WinPE, and the Linux tools all boot.
What's on the stick
A custom GRUB2 menu boots WinPE alongside a set of Linux repair tools: Clonezilla, ShredOS, Memtest86+, GParted, ddrescue, and chntpw. WinPE itself stays small, loading a tiny core into memory and reaching the rest from a large exFAT data partition. Because that partition is exFAT, the same tool folder is readable both from WinPE and from a live system, so nothing is stranded behind a boot. A set of built-in PowerShell tools covers the routine work: diagnostics, SMART, product keys, stress testing, and imaging.
Where it fits
This is a well-served space, and Vector isn't trying to unseat it. Loaded, ready-to-boot kits like Hiren's BootCD PE exist, Ventoy handles multiboot, and PEBakery builds custom WinPE. Vector's reason to exist is a different one: a rescue stick owned end to end, built from source with nothing opaque in it, so every piece is license-clean, reproducible, and yours to change. It's the kit built the way its maker wanted it, and a working demonstration of the engineering a stick like this takes.
At a glance
- Type
- Dual-use WinPE rescue stick (boot it, or run it live)
- Launcher
- C# WPF, .NET Framework 4.8
- Boot
- Custom GRUB2 multiboot (BIOS + UEFI)
- Built with
- Windows ADK + DISM; GRUB via WSL
- Tools
- Bring-your-own manifest; no binaries in the repo
- License
- MIT
Vector is public on GitHub under the MIT license. Read the build pipeline or make your own stick, and watch the changelog for updates.