Slipstreaming a Service Pack, is the process to integrate the Service Pack into the installation so that with every new installation the Operating System and Service Pack are installed at the same time.Slipstreaming is usually done on network shares on corporate systems. But with the advent of CD burners, it does actually make some sense for the home user or small business user to do the same. Microsoft added the ability to Slipstream a Service Pack to Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It not only has the advantage that when you (re)install your Operating System, you don’t have to apply the Service Pack later, also if you update any Windows component later, you’ll be sure that you get the correct installation files if Windows needs any.
In the past when you slipstreamed a Service Pack you had to use command line switches and then fiddle with boot sectors and ISO settings in Nero or you favourite burning software and it was fairly easy to make a mistake and then have to start all over again.
However, on one of my many trawls of the net I stumbled across are utility that has taken a lot of the guesswork out of this process as well as adding options to allow you to customise the installation process further. The program is called nLite and it was originally written to allow a person to customise their Windows XP installation by allowing them to add and remove components through a GUI. It has the required tools to do just an automated Service Pack slipstream as well as create a CD image. It should also work for both Windows 2000 & 2003 as well, though I haven’t actually tested this yet.
The program can be found here http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html. You will also need to install the .Net Framework if you don’t have this installed already. The only other things that you need are:
- A Windows XP CD. This has to be a proper CD and not a system disk as supplied by a lot of PC manufacturers these days.
- The latest “Network Install” Service Pack for the above
- Suitable CD Burning software capable of burning .ISO files (Nero, Alcohol, Easy CD Creator, etc.)
Slipstreaming the disk.
The first thing to do before you run nLite is to create a folder for the temporary storage of files during the Slipstreaming process. I normally call this XP-CD and remember locate this somewhere you can find it later. The best place if you have it available is on a separate drive i.e. D:\XP-CD but anywhere is okay as long as you have enough space available there. You should also create a folder called something like XP-SP2 in the same location and move the downloaded service
When you start nLite the first thing is to tell it where to find your Windows CD, and then instruct where to copy the files to on your Hard Disk. This should be the folder you created earlier (you did remember where you put it?).
Once that is done click on Next. We can choose a Service Pack to slipstream with the Windows Setup files we copied to the Hard Disk a moment ago. Again you need to locate the Service Pack but once that is done the process is very painless. When you have click on Open, the slipstream process will begin. You will see “extracting” and “updating files” windows appear during this time. The process will take a few minutes depending on the specification or the computer that you are using.
At this point, you can choose to click on Next and remove unwanted components from your Windows CD to speed up installation and various other advantages. This is beyond the scope of this tutorial (see the nLite homepage for more information on this). For personal preference, you may want to change your CD label. I normally use the same as the original XP CD. If you wish to do this you will need to change the underlined section in the following line which is located next to the Make ISO button:
-volid ” WinLite” -allow-multidot -relaxed-filenames -allow-leading-dots -N -l -d -D -joliet-long -duplicates-once -no-emul-boot -b boot.bin -hide boot.bin -hide boot.catalog
Do not change anything else in this line as the ISO image that we are going to create in the next step will not work.
Click on Make ISO to finish the job and create your ISO file. You will need to choose a location to save the ISO file to, so choose a location with plenty of free space available.
You should now have a single ISO file sitting on your Hard Disk; it’s an image dump of a CD which you can burn to CD using a capable burning application that supports ISO files. For Nero, you would go to File > Burn Image > select your ISO file, and start burning. It’s really that simple but please remember that you need to use software that supports the burning of ISO images. You cannot just copy the image file to a CD and you cannot use XP’s own burning software for this either as it does not support ISO files. The very last thing to do is to label your disk so you know what it is and that my friend’s is that.
About the Author:
I’m Richard Shortland and I am the Network Administrator at Castle Community School, Deal, Kent, United Kingdom. Besides using Windows I’m interested in using Linux and can be found on USAlug.
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for the most people who just want to slipstream, there is a better and easier program
AutoStreamer
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337
I was going to slipstream SP1 but by time I was I heard of SP2. Very cool especially for everyone who uses dialup and likes to reinstall XP everytime it becomes goop.
and I must say it is nice not having to worry about begin connected to the internet when you install XP. I slipstreamed SP2 about 3 days ago…MS sure does hide the network install patch on their site.
Imho this is a must. I’ve installed some fresh XP systems
lately, and one gets a virus/worm before there is time to download the patch from Microsoft.
A friend of mine has a Dell OEM WinXP CD, and could not slipstream SP2 for some reason, apparently because Dell had put something extra on there. I also have a Dell and I was able to Slipstream SP2 on mine.
I would also recommend the autostreamer from the team behind autopatcherXP. The little program makes slipstreaming a walk in the park. Here’s another link showing how to slipstream office and create unattended installs:
http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/office2003_slipstreaming.htm
I’m looking for a way to Slipstream a vendor’s device driver (SATA controller for my boot device) into the base OS so that I would not need a floppy disk each time I reinstall Windows.
Does anyone have a good tutorial on this for Windows 2000?
I saw a few for Windows XP, which is easier.
It does work.
It will not, if the OEM integrates extra patches with the CD. These patches are listes in svcpack.inf.
Copy 1386 folder to HD, erase the said file. Now you can integrate SP2 into XP + build the CD following boot CD instructions for XP. If you don’t want your CD to have the serial # integrated, go to i386 folder, open winnt.sif and erase the serial # entry, safe file.
Now you got a “clean” XP SP2 CD.
Of course, copy all of your CD content to HD, unhide hidden files first, then go to i386 folder, etc… sorry.
“The program can be found here http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html. You will also need to install the .Net Framework if you don’t have this installed already. The only other things that you need are:”
I wouldn’t like to install the .Net framework right now because as long as it has this +GDI vulnerability and microsoft only have a tool to inpect your PC for +GDI apps
like .Net framework and Office applications.
Besides that interesting article.
Slipstreaming doesn’t work on custom install disks that already have some updated added and/or slipstreamed into the install.
These are the instructions I followed when I created an SP2 slipstreamed install.
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html/
Take a look at the second screenshot on the screen talking about if you get an error.
and here’s a link that works without the extra /
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html
Maximum PC magazine has an excellent tutorial on just this topic. It was either this month or last month, can’t remember which, sorry.
“and here’s a link that works without the extra /
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html“
This is the _regular_ procedure. This will not work for OEM CDs with various single patches integrated via the unattended install mode – then you have to erase the svcpack file as I described, which is the problem his friend encountered.
Cool then, appreciate the info.
If there is sufficent interest then I will look at doing more articles on the other functions in nLite. So please let me know.
I’m looking for a way to Slipstream a vendor’s device driver (SATA controller for my boot device) into the base OS so that I would not need a floppy disk each time I reinstall Windows.
Does anyone have a good tutorial on this for Windows 2000?
I saw a few for Windows XP, which is easier.
The process should be basically the same. Google for “Windows 2000 unattended setup”.
Alternatively, any of the (numerous) MCSE study guides for Windows 2000 Server or Professional should document the procedure, if you can lay hands on one of them.
There is an option within nLite that allows you to add additional drivers to the base OS.
I’m assuming the service pack goes on the CD as the installer one can download from the windows update site. Can I also assume that I could have Mozilla FireFox and ThunderBird’s installers slipstreamed despite them having prompts durring their installation? What about device drivers and games?
for the most people who just want to slipstream, there is a better and easier program
AutoStreamer
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337
I recently found a nice simple program what I need that will include SP2 + update/fixes from Windows update. Also, even allow you to include third party apps in CD. It’s called XPCREATE.
http://greenmachine.msfnhosting.com/XPCREATE/
For Danish users I can recommend this free video-guide, showing how to slipstream SP2 with Windows XP.
I think Non-Danish-users can use it too, but they will not understand the audio-comments, offcause
http://www.serverguider.dk/artikler_117.html
I’ve used both the Nlite method and Autostreamer. If you want to modify the disc in a significant way Nlite offers more options. If all you want is an updated version with SP2, Autostreamer would be my first choice. Nlite is more complex to use and might be a bit rich for novice users.
Keep in mind you could always use Autostreamer to create the new ISO, then use any of the WinISO, WinImage, etc. programs to inject files and directories into the ISO.
http://www.betanews.com has it as well.. for future reference
If you have an MSDN account, MSDN slipstreams installations for you. They have an ISO with SP2 already intigrated in.
http://www.btsunattended.net/EN/DriverPacks/index.htm
Here are bucketloads of drivers you can add.
How do I slipstream my very nifty Windows XP 8-in-1 disk?
It has all flavours of Windows XP (and WPA patches) on one CD. It is great. I haven’t been able to slip-stream it though.