Windows XP Tablet SP3 Deployment with Sysprep

[WreX]

Microsoft is not releasing an SP3 integrated CD2 and nor is it supported to manually slipstream SP3 into a SP2 CD2. There are 2 options available for deploying a Windows XP Tablet PC Edition with Service Pack 3 included:

Option #1:

This option maintains your current SP2 Tablet PC Edition image and just incorporates the installation of SP3 into the deployment.

* Deploy a Windows XP Professional SP2 Image(converting to Tablet PC Edition as needed)

* As part of the deployment update the image to SP3

Option #2:

1. Deploy separate Windows XP and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP3 images.

I have been deploying XPSP2 by applying a standard image sealed with SysPrep and then booting into mini-setup. For XP Tablet, the factory.exe, setupcl.exe, setupmgr.exe, and sysprep.exe files are replaced with versions from the Tablet 2005 SP2 media and the appropriate tablet.txt and \i386\...\ files and folders from the Tablet CD placed in the SysPrep folder.

I wanted to update my base image to SP3, so I restored my SP2 pre-SysPrep Ghost image, manually installed SP3, replaced the SP2 SysPrep files with the downloaded SP3 Deploy.cab files, and re-sealed the image. XP Pro would load up no problem, but XP Tablet had issues. The software keyboard at the Ctrl-Alt-Del screen would just have the window frame and nothing inside, and attempting to launch the Tablet PC Input Panel would result in a crash of tabtip.exe and it would never launch again. Come to find out, M$ has decided not to support this method of deploying Tablet with SP3 due to who knows why. I suspect to encourage more Vista.

I did some experimenting and finally found a solution that works. If you're trying to do the same thing I am, here's what to do:

1. Get your SysPrep files for XP Tablet (C:\Sysprep, C:\Sysprep\i386\$oem$\, C:\Sysprep\i386\cmpnents\, C:\Sysprep\i386\digitizer\, etc.)

2. Download the XP SP3 patch file

3. Run the command "WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe /extract:C:\SP3TEMP"

4. Copy C:\SP3TEMP\i386\root\cmpnents\netfx\i386\netfx.cab to the C:\Sysprep\i386\cmpnents\netfx\i386\ folder, overwriting the existing file

5. Copy all files from C:\SP3TEMP\i386\root\cmpnents\tabletpc\i386\ to C:\TABTEMP\

6. Copy all files from C:\SP3TEMP\i386\root\cmpnents\tabletpc\i386\ to the C:\Sysprep\i386\cmpnents\tabletpc\i386\ folder, overwriting the existing files

7. Use the Windows EXPAND.EXE command to expand the compressed files in C:\TABTEMP\. Sample .bat attached.

8. Copy all files contained in C:\Sysprep\i386\cmpnents\tabletpc\i386\TABLETPC.CAB to C:\CABTEMP\

9. Find the files in C:\TABTEMP\ that are also in C:\CABTEMP\ and copy them from C:\TABTEMP\ to C:\CABTEMP\, overwriting the existing files

10. Download the M$ CAB SDK and issue the following command from the extracted \BIN\ folder: "cabarc n TABLETPC.CAB C:\CABTEMP\*.*"

11. Copy the newly-created TABLETPC.CAB to C:\Sysprep\i386\cmpnents\tabletpc\i386\, overwriting the existing file

Now all that's left is putting in place the C:\Sysprep\ folder for mini-setup. I did not replace the Sysprep *.exe files that were copied from the Tablet SP2 CD with the versions included in the SP3 Deploy.cab. Oh, and FYI, don't plan on getting any M$ support for this method.

tabexpand.txt