BSartist

Figured it out. Nlite needed to be run with administrator privs. I was originally running it from my normal login without privs. Turns out it was quietly ending the process of extracting somewhere along the line and there were a number of steps it never got to that I was unaware of. No error messages anywhere though. Thanx for the help.

I re-ran the whole nlite slipstream process, pointed it at my downloaded SP3 exe file. It said "slipstreaming" and extracted everything. I then went through the rest of the customizations and created an ISO. Still no SP3.cab. Ugh. When it was going through the process, I think the step for integrating service pack was grayed out in the progress display.

Hmmm... There is not. I guess something went wrong with my slipstream. I def pulled it in with nlite though. Thanx

Gak. I let the Windows Update happen so I can't tell what it was after the install. Are you saying that maybe it somehow was not the right build after all? I'm tempted to start over to see what it says.

I used Nlite to create an XP install CD with SP3 slipstreamed in (plus some look/feel customizations, user account defaults etc. After I ran my install (all went OK. Customizations all there), Windows update went through a few iterations if download/install/reboot what I though were post SP3 patches. Then it says next up to download and install is SP3. Why would it want to do that all over again if it's supposed to be baked into my install already?? TIA