Driver Packs = Huge filesize

[TheUni]

Usually when i pack a cd, i can cram 5 or 6 different versions into 1. It usually looks like this:

Dell

Gateway

XP Home

XP Pro

XP Home OEM

XP Home Upgrade

I tried integrating driver packs during the Nlite portion of my integration (I do nlite for each disk, then pack them all in). The individual cds are still small, but when i create the iso (usually about 650 megs), it's now over a gig. A quick windiff tells me that the driver.cab is the problem. It seems to be the same size for each version, but slightly different, so the iso can't use the same copy for each.

Any advice? Can i use the same driver.cab (and .sif files) for each build? I need some way to get the filesize back down to normal

TheUni

[Siginet]

If you delete the LANG folder and the WINNTUPG folders you will save a lot of space. If your file size is over a gig something is wrong. What method of DPs are you using? You should use Method 2... especially for multiboot disks. I have made planty of multiboot cds with the DPs. If you still can't fit them then you should use less DPs... but they all should fit fine. Maybe remove the third party DPs? I'm not sure why your driver.cab is different. Maybe nLite modifys something in driver.cab for each disk? I am not really good at troubleshooting nLite. Are all of your disks integrated in the exact same way? Same ServicePacks etc?

Edited September 15, 2006 by Siginet

[TheUni]

Siginet:

Ignore the post on the other forum.

I just discovered that after nliting with drivers, there's a 1byte difference in a majority of the files in the i386 folder for example:

MSCF , H /5º{ mmcfxcr.dll

MSCF , H /5‘ˆ mmcfxcr.dll

notice the character right after the 5.

I'm guessing that because of that, the iso creation makes 2 copies of all those files, rather than 1. For that reason, the iso gets MUCH bigger after adding a new cd.

My current procedure is nlite (including driver integration) -> powerpacker. Should i do somthing different? RyanVM for packing the drivers maybe?

Thanks for the help

[Siginet]

Personally I would use the DP Base to integrate the drivers. In my opinion the integrator is better at integrating things to your disk than nLite... but that is my opinion. Whereas nLite is much more superior when it comes to removing things. But as far as the DPs go... the DP Base is the way to go. In the integrator you can use the advanced tab to call the dp base after you finish an integration. Just search my forums for driverpacks. http://siginet.ryanvm.net

You can still use nLite as the last step if there is something else you need to remove.

I'm going to try to release a new Windows XP PowerPacker soon to fix a few minor bugs. But nothing much to worry about yet. Just make sure PowerPacker is copying your IDENT files to each Pack and to the root. In certain cases the current powerpacker is forgetting to do that.

P.S. Fans of PowerPacker love the fact that it easily chains together with the integrator as well.

Edited September 15, 2006 by Siginet

[TheUni]

OK

Here's my plan, then. I've been playing with dp_base and i like it.

Any problem with using nlite to remove and change some settings and integrate some packs (have to do this to 6 seperate folders, blehk), using powerpacker to merge them into 1 cd, then using dp_base on the ROOT folder to add drivers to all 6.

Sound ok?

[Siginet]

As far as I know there usually isn't an issue when using both together. But I would use nLite last when removing things. If you think about it, it sounds logical. Cause you can't remove what hasn't been integrated yet. But what you do is up to you. Trial and error. Whatever works best for you. Once you have a working method then stick to it.

Good luck.