Patch insllation and slipstreaming order

[Ascii2]

This inquiries in this post only apply to Windows patches released after year 2002. I note that Microsoft Corporation states to have included QChain functionality ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296861/ ) into the hotfixes released after December 2002.

Does the order for which patches are installed, without running the standalone QChain.exe application at the end of the running of a set of updates, matter?

Does the order for which patches are slipstreamed into an installation source matter?

Edited August 31, 2008 by Ascii2

[Ascii2]

I have made what I believe to be an important doscovery from the Microsoft Knowledgebase article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828930/en-us :

Update.exe will determine whether the update is appropriate for your installation source. For example, a fix that is included with Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) will not integrate in a Windows 2000 installation source that already has SP4 integrated. Update.exe also determines whether the installation source is for the correct hardware platform.

So it seems that the answers to the above question may be No and No.

[DarkShadows]

Yes and No

It does not matter from the perspective of the update software logic. As far as each individual update is concerned, they can be installed in any order. I still add QChain.exe to the end of my svcpack.inf file, since I install some older updates that are not part of any service pack.

However, from the perspective of the effects on the system, the order can matter significantly. For example, I integrate all of the IE6 cumulative updates and patches, before I install IE7. Then I install the IE7 versions of the same knowledgebase articles. That way if a user uninstalls IE7, IE6 will still be as up-to-date as possible.

There have also been some issues with things being installed in certain order from svcpack.inf. See GreenMachine's Complete SP3 SVCPACK.INF for more information.

[Ascii2]

I thought I had already replied to DarkShadosw post above much time ago. Apparently the post had failed to post.

Thank you DarkShadows; your response was quite helpful (all parts of it).