jerryd

Thanks for the tip about the screen flashing. I'll look for it when I have to install from the flash drive. jerryd

-X-, I was able to construct a bootable and installable USB flash drive for WIndows XP SP3 using nLite and WinSetupFromUSB. Here are the directions to do the entire thing. Steps: 1. Copy everything from the Windows CD to a file. 2. Integrate all MS updates into the I386 folder in that file. 3. Construct a bootable and installable USB flash drive containing an updated version of Windows. 1. First copy all the files from the Windows CD to a file in your HD. I named it winxp. Remove the Windows CD, it's no longer needed. Note the size of the I386 folder in winxp for reference later. 2. Next download and extract UDC-03.13.12.zip from http://xdot.tk/updates.html and double click on the batch file. This will download all the MS Hotfix, Add-ons and Update Packs to a folder called UDC-03.13.12. Note: The folder name will reflect the current date. Next download and installed nLite. When you run nLite it will first ask for the location of the Windows installation. In my case it's c:\winxp. Click next and nLite will display information about your windows installation CD. Click next and decide if you want to "import other or load previous settings". I skiped this step. Click next to get the "Task Selection" menu. Click on "Hot Fixes, Add-ons and Update Packs" and click next. At the Hotfix, Add-ons and Update Packs menu click on insert and then browse to and open the UDC-03.13.12(name will change depending on the date you downloaded). This folder should be full of windows update files. I found 2 files in this folder I had to delete: WindowsXP-WindowsMedia-KB2378111-x86-ENU.exe and Copy of Adobe.Flash.Player-v11.1.102.63.cab. Also delete the Obselete folder if it's present. Now click on the first file name and hold down the shift key, navigate to and click on last file name and let up on the shift key. This should highlight all the files in this folder. Click Open. All the file names should now be in the nLite window. Click next and answer yes to "Do you want to start the process". On my system this took a long, long time. When it's done note the size of the I386 folder in winxp. It should be many MB larger since all the updtates are now integrated into it. 3. Now download and unzip WinSetupFromUSB 1.0 beta7. This is a .7Z file so you may need to download some decompression application. I used WinZip. Insert a flash drive that's at least a couple of GB. Mine was 4GB. Start WinSetupFormUSB and follow the directions here: http://myeeeguides.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/winsetupfromusb-install-windows-xp-from-usb-flash-drive/ Before clicking on the "GO" button I had to turn off my AV(avast) or I got an error message. There are probably other ways to do this but this worked for me. Thanks for the help. jerryd

MSFN forum, Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 SP3 When I exited RMPRPUSB the "GO" button was grayed out. UPDATE! In the WinSetupFromUSB window I had checked the "Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup box and typed in the path to the source files. I eventually figured out that I had to actually click on the "browse" box and navagate to the path and click open. Then the "GO" button was highlighted. Ran to completion, no errors. When I booted from the USB I got a Grub4Dos menu that asked if I wanted to install windows or boot. Boot worked and I assume install will also. Here's an explaination of the entire project. My laptop is a super light that came with a read only external optical drive. I have an original Windows XP SP3 CD. Steps: 1. Copy everything from the Windows CD to a file. 2. Integrate all MS updates into the I386 folder in that file. 3. Construct a bootable and installable USB flash drive containing an updated version of Windows. If anyone cares here's the details. First copy all the files from the Windows CD to a file in your HD. I named it winxp. Remove the Windows CD, it's no longer needed. Note the size of the I386 folder in winxp for reference later. Next download and extract UDC-03.13.12.zip from http://xdot.tk/updates.html and double click on the batch file. This will download all the MS Hotfix, Add-ons and Update Packs to a folder called UDC-03.13.12. Note: The folder name will reflect the current date. Next download and installed nLite. When you run nLite it will first ask for the location of the Windows installation. In my case it's c:\winxp. Click next and nLite will display information about your windows installation CD. Click next and decide if you want to "import other or load previous settings". I skiped this step. Click next to get the "Task Selection" menu. Click on "Hot Fixes, Add-ons and Update Packs" and click next. At the Hotfix, Add-ons and Update Packs menu click on insert and then browse to and open the UDC-03.13.12(name will change depending on the date you downloaded). This folder should be full of windows update files. I found 2 files in this folder I had to delete: WindowsXP-WindowsMedia-KB2378111-x86-ENU.exe and Copy of Adobe.Flash.Player-v11.1.102.63.cab. Also delete the Obselete folder if it's present. Now click on the first file name and hold down the shift key, navigate to and click on last file name and let up on the shift key. This should highlight all the files in this folder. Click Open. All the file names should now be in the nLite window. Click next and answer yes to "Do you want to start the process". On my system this took a long, long time. When it's done note the size of the I386 folder in winxp. It should be many MB larger since all the updtates are now integrated into it. Now download and unzip WinSetupFromUSB 1.0 beta7. This is a .7Z file so you may need to download some decompression application. I used WinZip. Insert a flash drive that's at least a couple of GB. Mine was 4GB. Start WinSetupFormUSB and follow the directions here: http://myeeeguides.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/winsetupfromusb-install-windows-xp-from-usb-flash-drive/ Before clicking on the "GO" button I had to turn off my AV(avast) or I got an error message. There are probably other ways to do this but this worked for me. Hope this helps someone. Thanks for all the replies. jerryd

jaclaz, I downloaded and installed WinSetupFromUSB 1.0 beta7. I ran RMPREPUSB to format the USB selecting XP/BartPE bootable NTLDR and NTFS and then clicked on 6 Prepare Drive. It runs to completion with no errors. When I exit RMPREPUSB there is a message at the bottom of the WinSetupFromUSB tool the reads 3844MB Not ready... I checked the properties of this drive with windows and it looks correct. I removed the USB and re-installed it but when re-start WinSetupFormUSB I got the same message. I tried it again specifying Fat32 , same problem. Getting closer but stuck again. jerryd

MSFN forum, From all your responses I see my current approach wasn't going work. I found WinSetupFromUSB on the internet and used it to re-constructed a bootable flash drive. All the correct files seem to be on the flash drive. Now when I power up and hit the f12 key to get the "one time boot menu" I select USB. This just gets me to a grub> prompt. If type boot it asks me to load the Kernel. ?? jerryd

MSFN forum, Windows XP Home Edition version 2002 SP3 I've been posting on the nLite site of this forum but now I think this site is more appropiate. I used nLite to construct an iso file for Windows XP with all MS updates included. Now I want to copy the iso file to a flash drive and make that flash drive bootable so I can boot from it or load WIndows on a new HD. I tried PEBuilder but the peinst.cmd wouldn't recognize the iso file. Any suggestions? jerryd

-X- With those 2 files deleted there were no error messages. It spent about 30 minutes just Compressing Cabinets. Does that seem right? It reported that "the installation grew by 21.56MB" and then "Iso created successfully!". Thanks for the help, jerryd

-X- I restarted nLite and inserted all the update files. When I scanned down the list with nLite they all looked like Windows update files. I couldn't find a file named svcpack.inf, maybe it's hidden. I've attached my last session.ini. It's after 1 AM here so I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks, jerryd LAST SESSION.INI

-X-, Thanks, I was able to copy all the updates into the Hotfiles section. Just before nLite started "Compressing Cabinets" I go this error message: H-The process cannot access the file 'C:\winxp\i386\svcpack.inf' because it is being used by another process. There were no other processes running at the time. I clicked OK and nLite continued on and made an iso file. Because of the error message I wasn't sure if the .iso file was correct so I started the whole process over again and got the same error message at the same point. Is this a problem or can I ignore it? jerryd

-X- Thanks for the reply. What a great program. I followed your directions and everything seems to have worked. After running the .bat file I ended up with many .exe and some .cab files in that folder. Do I have to enter the full path names to all these files into the "Hotfix, Add-ons and Update Packs" section of nLite or can I just enter the path to this folder? Jerryd

nLite Forum, I'm using nLite to do slipstreaming for the first time. I have a Windows XP SP3 cd and want to slipstream it and integrate all the updades from MS so I end up with an up-to-date bootable XP. I'm OK until I get to the "Task Selection" menu. I don't think I should select Service Pack since I already have SP3. But to get all the MS updates do I select "Hotfixes, Add-ons and Update Packs"? The updates(Hotfixes, Add-ons and Update Packs) can't be on my XP CD so I must have to download them from somewhere. Or does Nlite extract them from my HD? As you can see I'm very confused. Thanks for any reply, Jerryd