MrSinatra

I think this is correct. If you mean by 'it seems to call it TWO sessions', that nLite creates two Last Session files, I don't think so.However, if you are happy, I am happy. Have fun, John. not to belabor the point, but as i recall what it did was create two separate files, even though i did it all in one fell swoop as described above. one was called "Last Session" and the other was a minute younger, with a datestamp type filename. i find that odd. both slipping the SP and inserting the drivers all at once should, imo, by design only create ONE session file. but this is a very minor nitpik. nlite is a great, great utility! (and just to reiterate for others, i do NOT believe all dell oem xp cds are created equal! i believe i was lucky to have the specific XPS one i have, which is from when dell XPS still meant something)

i think it calls them separate sessions even if you do it all at once, simply b/c you do a SP and drivers together. in other words, intuitively, i would assume that if i started nlite, slipped the SP and the drivers, and made the iso, all at once, that would be called ONE session, right? however, this does NOT seem to be the case. even when you do it as i describe above it seems to call it TWO sessions. i guess thats just the way it works, (maybe only under vista?) in any case... TEST RESULTS: i made BOTH a sp2 and a sp3 version of my PSU gold cd with nlite on a vista64 machine. BOTH accepted the product key! so it seems nlite does not have a bug, as you said all along. and it seems that you CAN slip sp3 to the dell oem sp2 cd on vista(64) AS LONG AS you use nlite to do it. kudos to nlite, one helluva'n app. (i'll edit the thread title now) ps. the dell oem xp pro sp2 cd came from a very highend and expensive at the time XPS machine, so that probably explains why it was full version and worked.

these next two sessions are from the other vista64 computer. they were a minute apart. i don't know enough about nlite to understand why they are separate, but the first one seems to be for the sp, the second one for the drivers. the first, earlier session: the next session, (last session) one minute later seems to be about the drivers: i don't know why there are two only a minute apart, i don't recall starting/stopping/restarting, but i am pretty sure those last two together are what allowed me to make the dell oem sp2 cd into the sp3 iso with the drivers. like i said, it works. the install seems totally stable to me.

here is the session for when i made the psu cd (the first one which failed, meaning it no longer liked my product key): remember, i had already slipped sp2 and sp3 by the time i went to use nlite, so the MS article u posted would explain why this failed, since i had performed the slips and used nlite on a vista machine.

here is the size: 316 MB (331,805,736 bytes) thats the size, NOT the "size on disk." i got that from MS some time ago. filename: WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe i don't know how to do the MD5 thing. using nlite on a dell vista64 computer, i was able to slip that into the dell oem cd (xp pro sp2) and then get it to install on the other dell vista64 computer i have.

it is true that i didn't use nlite to "integrate" sp2 and sp3 on the penn state cd attempt, (i used cmd line). i did use nlite for the rest of it. and i did all of it on a vista64 machine. this dell xp pro sp2 cd was from dell, green, had dell logos all over it, etc, but seems to me to be a FULL copy of xp. it doesn't seem to ask for any codes when installed to dell mobo's it recognizes (or so i deduce), but when i have used it to install on other computers, like say an asus board, at some point i had to do the very long code and call microsoft to get it, and say that it wasn't installed anywhere else, (which was true actually). the fact is, i was able to use nlite on a vista machine to slip sp3 to it and get it to then install on another vista machine. i'll do you one better... i will use nlite on vista64 to create TWO iso's... one will be slipped with sp2, the other with sp3, and both will use the penn state cd and the intel drivers. we will then see if i have the same issue with both service packs, or not. does that sound like a good plan to you? this time, i will try to install XP to the machine that doesn't have XP yet. (i don't want to damage my current xp install, its already configured, etc...)

please... relax. i will change it if during the course of the thread i become convinced of that. i am certainly leaning that way, but i am not sure yet. that [second part] would seem to be a false statement. as i said, i took a dell oem xp pro sp2 cd and slipped in sp3 and my drivers into an iso. i did this using nlite on a [second] vista64 machine. i then burned the iso to cd and successfully installed xp to [the first] machine. (i have two fairly new vista64 dell computers here, equal configs. i used the first one to build the penn state cd that failed in an install attempt on that same first machine, and i used the second one to build the dell oem cd that worked on the first machine) ok, i am happy to be corrected. i am surprised that u can do it via slipping and not direct in a live environment but i believe you, lets move on. i will try to find the correct sessions, i might have a problem identifying them, but again, I BELIEVE YOU and others when u say you only need to slip the latest SP, (ie. sp3). thats NOT the issue i am talking about when i say there may be a bug. please see my other posts, no need for me to restate what i said in them.

the CD was part of a joint PSU-microsoft program. literally thousands and thousands of people have this CD or a copy of it, and they all use the same 25char code. it still works today as it always has, and presumably always will). it is used not only by students, but by staff and faculty, on university computers as well. i have installed it myself on numerous systems, and i have patched them (live) to sp3 without one time, EVER having it fail an activation or having it not accept the product key. (either at install or post install via patching) the ONLY time i have had an issue, is this time, where i integrated (slipped) sp3 via command line as i described in my first post. (i have not tried slipping sp3 with nlite to the penn state cd, but i gather i would get the same result) i suppose i can guess that the dell oem sp2 cd w/sp3 slipped simply never asks for a product key b/c it knows its a dell mobo i am trying to install to... but even so, that means that simply having sp3 and vista present together is not the whole reason as to why such installs can fail. what i want to know is why does my penn state cd w/sp3 slipped fail to recognize the correct product key, when its almost a certainty that i could simply slip sp2 and then apply sp3 later when its "live" and still be verified genuine?

i am more than happy to be corrected... if u only need to slipstream sp3 to a gold cd, then fine, so be it. (also, i HAVE to add the intel drivers no matter what so the cd can access the raid) but that doesn't address my larger issue, that i contend MAY be a bug... someone please address this issue: IF sp3 is the problem in my first attempt, why isn't it also a problem in my second attempt? meaning, if having sp3 slipstreamed when vista(64) is already present causes a problem on my penn state gold cd (with sp3 slip'd) try, why doesn't it also cause a problem on my dell oem sp2 cd (with sp3 slip'd) try? what i can't understand, is why my first attempt didn't work, especially since my second attempt did.

well, it MIGHT be a nlite bug. true, i can not say for sure. also, my understanding is that you have to "integrate" sp2 FIRST, and THEN integrate sp3, to a XP cd, that you can not just do sp3 alone. that view was bolstered b/c i am pretty sure i (at some past point) tried to run sp3 the normal way on a xp install with no service packs, and it said i had to have sp2 first. let me post a differing solution i found, and then you all can say what you think about it... i wasn't getting anywhere as i posted above, even though i was using the penn state cd that never gave me trouble before. i guess my next step could have been to try the same thing but with only sp2 instead of both sp2 and sp3, but i remembered i had another cd. the machines that had vista64 already were from dell. they also came from the factory in a two drive raid1 (mirror) config, so thats where the system was. i split the partition in half so i would have a place for XP. i then took a DELL oem XP pro sp2 cd, (from a dell computer that was 3-4 years younger) and this time, i used nlite to integrate sp3, as well as the (intel) raid drivers. this time, it all worked! it never even asked me for a product key or anything! i assume this is b/c the dell cd recognized the dell mobo. so it seems sp3 does NOT NECESSARILY stop you from doing what i did even with vista(64) already on another partition. it remains an open question as to whether i could have gotten my original attempt to work if i had either ONLY gone to sp2 or used nlite to integrate sp2 and sp3. i do hope this information helps out others, and interested to hear any feedback.

hi, i just wanted to say that first u make a hell of a useful utility, thx! BUT i do have an issue, and i'll try to explain it briefly... i have a no service pack XP pro cd from penn state that can be installed endlessly on any machine, same 25char code, and many others have it to, it was part of a campus-wide pgm for students, faculty, etc... anyway, i downloaded SP2 and SP3. i went to start->run and used cmd line to "integrate" sp2 first, and then sp3 to a copy of this penn state xp CD on HD. at that point, i used your app to embed some sata raid drivers i needed, and i used your app to then make a bootable iso and burned it to disk. i went to install it on an unused partition on the raid, (where vista64 already was installed on a different partition), and it seemed to work fine UNTIL it got to the product key. at that point, i put in the key that has always worked, and it didn't accept it. so i am stuck at that point. i see some notes about it in your nlite development, but i don't know what to do / try now? thanks again, -mdw