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Take any file and compute the MD5 hashes of the two files (must be the same file) http://www.slavasoft.com/hashcalc/index.htm If they are equal then it is probably the result of waste due to the block size of the file system. Edit: FYI On my current XP disc (SP2 /w all critical updates integrated) File: SYSDM.CP_ MD5 HASH: 0747984cf7eb6ad3572fb31d01e831db The Windows Calculator Program is the same version for every version of xp that I know of (retail/oem/corp of home/media center/professional) *grin* File: CALC.EX_ MD5 HASH: e73cfccd7ddaff487f913f030f89f1d7 (should be the same for very version of xp's calc) Expanded hash: 829e4805b0e12b383ee09abdc9e2dc3c

I can't see any reason why you would want to do this unless your doing something that your users would not like. As far as I know exescript and reg2exe are just intended for packaging purposes and do not 'encrypt' your script/registry entires. Why does it matter? Just about every batch file I've seen used on an unattended disc is fairly simple. Your registry settings can easily be discovered by using a registry snapshot program. Why do you need to protect your content? It's on a CDR and most people would have no idea that it's different from a regular XP disc (besides not being shiney) and even less would know how to modify it. Why?

Well... it chokes both ways.... I'm out of Ideas. Only other thing I can think of making from single disc versions.

It seems that there are also files that need to be replaced within the 3ENE, 3ENS, 3ENW directorys... I could write a program to copy over the files from the SP's I386 directory, but I'm wondering if there is a beter/proper way?

This is what I did: Extracted CD contents to D:\W2K3\W2K3 Extracted SP1 to: D:\W2K3\SP1 Extracted Boot files to: D:\W2K3\boot Then Executed: D:\W2K3\SP1\Update\Update.exe -s:D:\W2K3\W2K3\ENGLISH\WIN2003\ENT D:\W2K3\SP1\Update\Update.exe -s:D:\W2K3\W2K3\ENGLISH\WIN2003\STD D:\W2K3\SP1\Update\Update.exe -s:D:\W2K3\W2K3\ENGLISH\WIN2003\WEB Do I need to do anything else before cdimage to create the compacted image?