WDS, XP Image, and Windows Updates

[grante]

I work at a computer shop, and frequently reformat people's computers and reinstall windows.

I've been thinking of setting up a Server 2008 box and running WDS to send XP images to the machines with all the latest windows updates and such. I've figured out how to use sysprep to make it work across different hardware and different HALs (in theory, haven't tested any of this yet).

The only think I'm not sure about, is when more windows updates come out and I want to add them to the image, is there any way to do it without rebuilding a machine, installing updates, resyspreping, and recapturing it?

Is there something equivalent to slipstreaming for the captured images? I've searched everywhere and found nothing useful so far.

[Tripredacus]

I don't believe you can. You can, alternatively, mount the WIM, put the updates in a folder someplace, and edit your SYSPREP.INF (or load the registry hive to use RunOnce) to install the updates when the computer boots up after redeploy. Then you could have an additional program (if you so desired) that would delete the updates after you can confirm that they were run, idea script:

IF reg entry exists for kb_x THEN del c:\updates\kb_x

[grante]

Thanks...

That would save on the time downloading, but add to the time installing windows, and significantly add to the maintenance I'd have to do.

After looking at all the possible options for deploying windows XP, I think the best option I've come up with so far is:

- windows discs (home and pro) copied to a network share and slipstreamed with as many drivers and updates as possible, which shouldn't be too hard to maintain

- WinPE or BartPE disc with custom scripts to mount the network share, possibly backup the \documents and settings tree, format the drive, and call winnt32 to start the install

With any luck, I'll be able to get a disc I can boot from CD or PXE on my linux server (which I have half working now...the image boots in vmware but then won't load networking for some reason)

[Tripredacus]

What we do for XP is an unattended install, then during the GUI Mode Setup, we map a drive and execute a batch file on the server that installs our updates that way.