Updating Windows ....

[midiboy]

Hi guys,

just a quick question. During Windows Setup there are a few phases (installing functions, updating Windows etc.)

What is Setup doing during the "Updating Windows" Phase ? Could I maybe add Windows updates to a special folder on the setup DVD and Windows would then install those updates during setup automatically ?

The guide by Firegeier has a section on integrating updates but I´d rather not do it that way because if new updates are released I would have to use WAIK again. It would be far easier to just drop the new update files in a folder, don´t you think ?

Thanks for your help !

Alex

[ajua]

Vista doesn't have that functionality built-in. Nevertheless, Windows Server does have it with the $WinPEDrivers$ folder.

The PkgMgr method of injecting drivers is working so far. The only downside is that many vendors are releasing drivers many often and its difficult to have a source folder for drivers as with XP but im keeping an install.wim with hotfixes and language pack only so i can integrate drivers before going to the field to make vista installations.

[midiboy]

Hi elajua,

thanks for the reply. Yes, I saw the $WinPEDrivers$ directory mentioned in the logfiles of the Vista SP1 Setup, since that will share the same code with Windows Server 2008 we will have this feature soon for Vista too. That will be the easiest way to integrate drivers.

But as far as I know it is only for drivers, NOT for Windows Updates.

So what does Vista Setup do during the phase where it says "Installing Updates ..." ? Seems like it looks for updates somewhere (online ???) but in my case this phase is over very quickly so I guess it does not find any updates. There must be a way to tell Windows Setup to look into a special folder for updates during that phase, no ??

Bye,

Alex

[atabrk]

I'm preparing an answer file with Windows System Image Manager and adding update cab packages.(Each cab file must be on a seperate folder). If you have a network access while setup you should give credentials.

For instance, I have all cab files on its folders under "D:\Updates\"

I add all the cab files via WSIM to the unattended file and start the installation with it. So, after expanding wim, cabs are being installed in that "Installing Updates" section.

You have to take care the paths if you have more than one disks/partitions.

[midiboy]

Hi atabrk,

thanks for the input. Yes, that seems to be the way to do it but it is not very good. On each new update by microsoft you have to start WSIM and add them to the image. I´d rather just put the updates in a folder on the DVD or share and have Windows pick them up during Windows setup automatically. In Windows XP I am doing this with a script but since Vista altready has that "Installing Updates" phase I thought it would be cool to use that.

Bye,

Alex

[tazmaniandevil]

Hi atabrk

I am trying to add updates using this method, but so far it simply does not work for me. Vista setup stops with error message:

"Windows could not apply unattend settings during pass. (Null)"

I have each update in it's own folder, and I am using unc paths in the answer file. When setup stops, I have opened a cmd prompt to try and find the .cab files, but have not been able to find them. There is no connection to the reminst share at this point.

Any guidance would be appreciated

Tom

[Obet31]

Any updates on this. I have the same problem. What I'm thinking now is to just create a script that will be run in a synchronous command. I just don't know what phase to run it.

Thank you very much.

[ajua]

integrating with pkgmgr works well for me. if you wanna try to run them inside a cmd file go with Setupcomplete.cmd or FirstLogonCommands

[tazmaniandevil]

I can also integrate the updates using pkgmgr, following this guide. I find however that after doing so, and creating a new catalogue file in WSIM, I am unable to re-open or save my imageunattend.xml file. Whenever I try I get the following error.

This does not only happen after integrating updates, but any time I make any changes to the install.wim, which is why I have avoided doing so.

[midiboy]

Hi !

There´s a hotfix available for this error:

Patch Information

Bye,

Alex

[ajua]

i was getting that problem before when doing some vLite tests.

I tried to isolate problematic updates in order to avoid this error and i was successful but had to try many times integrating some updates only and making tests...

on the vLite forum are some posts about updates that don't integrate well.

[MAVERICKS CHOICE]

Hi !

There´s a hotfix available for this error:

Patch Information

Bye,

Alex

OK if I'm building my Vista source from within XP SP2 as I have always done can I apply this patch?

[midiboy]

OK if I'm building my Vista source from within XP SP2 as I have always done can I apply this patch?

Hi !

Yes, sure. it simply contains a dll for WAIK or BDD that you have to exchange manually + add a registry key. It works on Vista and XP.

Bye,

Alex

[tazmaniandevil]

Cheers midiboy, I got that sorted out via Microsoft but since applying the patch each time I try to integrate the updates the integrity check fails.

"Echo %ERRORLEVEL%" returns 1359

I'm currently looking at an alternative, because integrating the updates on one machine then creating the answer file on another is just too much trouble.

I won't go into any detail here in case it turns out to be another red herring.

Microsoft have also announced that integrating SP1 is likely to corrupt the .wim image. What a crock this is turning out to be. Surely it would have been much better to create a Vista deployment mechanism for RIS instead of releasing this sub-standard mess which does not work anyplace near where the documentation claimed.

[ajua]

they put so much effort on building all the command-line tools. What makes me upset is that building graphical frontends for those tools wouldn't be hard, but they didn't...

so far, i integrated many updates without problems, but i had to left some out because they won't install.

im trying to install using setupcomplete.cmd but they are not being installed.