Slipstreaming multiple service packs is bad.

[weEvil]

I wanted to see what would happen if I overlapped service packs on each other.

Used:

1. Innotek Virtualbox

2. XP Home CD. SP0. Unattended only.

3. SP3-5503, SP2, SP1a.

4. nLite 1.4.1

Results:

Single Slipstream - SP3

C: 9233 Files, 575 Folders = 1.13GB, 1.00GB on disk.

Triple Slipstream - SP3 + SP2 + SP1

C: 9260 Files, 590 Folders = 1.14GB, 1.01GB on disk.

Count was done immediately post-install. No restart. Nothing modified.

I selected the contents of C: and just got a count from explorer.

What could be causing the size difference?

Is there any way to compare the contents to find the extra junk?

Would it be useful to try HFSLIP too?

Edited March 20, 2008 by brucevangeorge

[Kelsenellenelvian]

OK here are my pre-install findings:

XP Gold iso size = 492 megs
XP SP1a iso size = 507 megs
XP SP2 iso size = 582 megs
XP SP1a + SP2 iso size = 594 megs
XP SP1a + SP2 + SP3 iso size = 624 megs
XP SP3 iso size = 593 megs

Total wasted space with all 3 packs? = 31 megs

Total size gain from XP gold to SP3 = 101 megs

Where are all the extra files coming from? Mostly drivers.

[weEvil]

Where are all the extra files coming from? Mostly drivers.

So what about all the extra folders?

I'm assuming drivers are located in the INF, LastGood, and Driver Cache.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Get an app like dirlister and select your drive from a CLEAN install, list all files\folders. Save that somewhere safe. Re-install with all packs and do the same.

THEN grab an app like pspad and do a file compare on the 2 text files...

[weEvil]

I was going to try to do a dump of the contents of each machine onto a USB stick.

This makes it much easier.

I'll do this on the source and try to remove the ~30mb before it decompresses on the HD.

Edited March 21, 2008 by brucevangeorge

[weEvil]

Yup. It was a bunch of drivers in SP1.cab & SP2.cab and some other junk.

Once removed, it works just fine.

Thanks man.

[seacliff]

I've been looking for some info about having multiple service packs on the same I386 directory (i.e.: 2k + SP3 + SP2 + SP1).

What are the impact? Will this works fine or should I just use the latest service packs? You are saying that spX.cab content drivers and some other junk, but what is that junk?

What I need is I386 files on file server, so our users can get the cds when installing new services on their servers. Every servers have their own version of service packs.

thanks,

[andrew84uk]

Thanks for this info!

[ImaT]

just curious as to why you want multiple service packs. sp3 would cover sp1, sp1a, and sp2.?

►ô¿ô◄

[Nick_White]

SP1 brought some new drivers in SP1.cab

SP2 brought some additional drivers, so SP2.cab contains SP1 drivers + SP2 drivers.

The same goes to SP3.

So if you slipstream the three SP's, you get three SPx.cab's, two with redundant driver files.

I could be mistaken about SP2 containing SP1 drivers, but SP3 contains the previous ones (thus you can use it with RTM version of Windows XP).

[seacliff]

For now, we have multiple servers with different version of sps. Those servers always ask for CDs when clients install new package. So we want some script to change the reg key automatically to a file server.

We wanted to know if there could be some issue if we install some package with sp2 if that server only have sp1. Because some files has different date. I mean, slipstreaming service pack doesn't really add a cab and cat file only, right?

This is our main concern.

thanks for your reply,

[Stoner81]

I've been looking for some info about having multiple service packs on the same I386 directory (i.e.: 2k + SP3 + SP2 + SP1).

What are the impact? Will this works fine or should I just use the latest service packs? You are saying that spX.cab content drivers and some other junk, but what is that junk?

What I need is I386 files on file server, so our users can get the cds when installing new services on their servers. Every servers have their own version of service packs.

thanks,

Only slipstream ONE service pack in your install since SP2 supercedes SP1 and SP3 supercedes SP2.

[seacliff]

ok, thanks for your answers