Clarify Me: Cat/inf/update.exe ?

[Honnes]

So far i have accomplished to slipstream a lot of hotfixes (all of them, since yesterday) It didnt work allways that well and so on, but after 4 weeks of spending some time on it i learned the work arounds. But, i still am wondering and questioning myself a couple of things, i listed it below and maybe some of you can help me out.

I'll do it on the order as the topic title says...

CAT Files --

As we are slipstreaming stuff, you need to use the CAT files in order to install the hotfixes into windows itself (even though the files are slipstreamed). We created on a nice manner the svcpack.inf which includes the catsubdir folder and the cat..to install text with all the .CATs within the SVCPACK folder.

Even though i do this on the proper way, i still am getting messages that i have to install all those updates. What exactly are those .CAT files doing then ? Whats their purpose in this whole installation ? I don't see any of the results from which i can say "wooow, that CAT file really helped me out". No not at all, can someone explain this to me what they actually are doing then ?

INF Files --

Some of us delete all of them, just like me. Some of us extract information from them in order to create proper reg keys so WU will recognise things like WU stuff. Whats the best way to handle, delete them or collect the info ?

Collecting them will force us/you to install it into the reg, ain't i right ? So even a custom installation with some parts less will also have the regs in the system, even though those parts are not used. Let alone the hotfixes.

UPDATE.exe --

I read the Hotstream project and it appears that update.exe is mentioned a couple of times. Is update.exe used to install .CAT / .INF files or something else ?

Thank you for the time reading all this. Any help is welcomed.

[rion]

Uhm, try looking at this article over at microsofts homepage.

828930 How to integrate software updates into your Windows installation source

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=828930

[Honnes]

I have seen this one before, but why does microsoft integrates by extracting all the files, then copy to source, in the meanwhile..your also copying the hotfix.exe to the svcpack + the .cat file.

Is this really integration or just wasting more space then ever ?

[rion]

what you are doing when your running update /integrate is that you are replacing the files within the i386 folder with the updated versions.

this is how i interpret the text.

[Honnes]

thats the first part of the text

Below there's said what to do next...

copy .cat to svcpack

copy kbnnnn.exe to svcpack

modify the dosnet.inf

create svcpack.inf and so on...

I've also checked the OEM site

http://oem.microsoft.com/script/contentpag...=551737#top#top

and here's also explained how to slipstream the files into the source, but there's nearly a difference...i only noticed one typing difference.

OEM Site:

Catalogsubdir "i386\svcpack"

(other) Site(s): Catalagsubdir "\i386\svcpack"

which one is the 'correct' version ?

[edit] ps: does someone also has some info about those cat files ? are they worth anything, results of them and so on [/edit]