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Slipstream Windows Update Rollup


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Welcome the the forums

Slipstreaming a service pack or a hotfix is not particularly hard. Slipstriming a BETA update is not particulary smart in my opinion. Thank you for the bit of information, but it's posted all over the site already.

Enjoy your stay.

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Works great, and since its executed from svcpack.inf, I should be able to add the other patches, and the OPKs of directx, .net and the wmp9&mm2 bundle under [setupHotfixesToRun] (not slipstreamed, but a few other patches won't take too long under the 13min stage)

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Just to be clear, this is a true slipstream of the beta rollup. The tradional way of using svcpack.inf is NOT slipstreaming. Even though the rollup is in beta, it contains the same files from windows updates. So doing windows update will accomplish the same thing. The only "beta" part of the rollup is the actual installer.

The tradional way to use svcpack.inf is to extract the hotfix files into the i386 folder, then run the actual hotfix using svcpack.inf. So let's say you have a 3 meg hotfix, and when you extract the hotfix the files are 5 megs big. With the tradional way of using svcpack.inf, you would be using 8 megs (3 for the hotfix and 5 for the extracted files). So as you see that's not slipstreaming. In my example, what i am doing is only using the extracted files, im not using the original hotfix. So in this example, i would be using around 5 megs (5 megs for extract files, plus 250k for setup.exe).

Let's compare the size of doing this the tradional way, and my way for the rollup:

Tradional way:

27.6 MB (sp2 files) + 8.96 MB (rollup installer) = 36.56 MB

My way (true slipstream)

27.6 MB (sp2 files) + 512k (rollup installer) = 28.1 MB

So doing it my way saves you about 8 megs of disk space. Also, during testing i noticed the xp install took about the same time as it took without the rollup slipstreamed. Although to be fair, i didn't test to see how long it took to install xp with the full rollup not slipstreamed, but i imagine i would take much longer than my method.

For example, it takes 22 mins to install xp on my computer, or about 18 mins with an unattend file. Awhile back i made an unattended cd that installed every critical hotfix (at that time) using cmdlines.txt. When this CD hit the 13 min mark, it took about 20 mins to install the hotfixes, making my install time around 37 mins (17 mins+20 mins). With my method of slipstreaming the rollup, it took about 17 or 18 mins to install XP using an unattend file. So not only does the install have all the critical hotfixes integrated, but the install time is about the same.

to un4given1:

If you actually read what ive done, you'll see it's different from other people using svcpack.inf If you don't believe im the first person to do this, search google on svcpack.inf. In every single website/newsgroup you'll see everyone named the folder in svcpack.inf as svcpack. I'm the only person to name the folder anything but svcpack (you have to name it Update because xp service packs are hard coded to be run in a folder called Update). And im the only person to truely slipstream using svcpack.inf (the other method makes you run the original hotfixes). I did a brief search on this forum for svcpack.inf, and in every case i saw the svcpack.inf folder called svcpack.

-gosh

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Which method is "true" and which is "NOT" is simply a question of semantics ...

The result of either method is quite similar: both have the files "integrated" (a.k.a. slipstreamed) into the I386 folder. The difference is in the installation method. Gosh's method extracts the installer, and only keeps that (thus the "UPDATE" directory, as opposed to the "SVCPACK" directory), not the compressed updated files, which are already in I386. The installer will still overwrite the updated versions, albeit overwrite a file with itself, as it is working in it's native form, and looking for files in the parent directory to copy to the installation source.

You cheated with your "salesmans" math: you do not take into account the free space due to deleted (overwritten) files. Sorry, I just get suspicious when presented with number arguments ...

Though the files contained in the RollUp are indeed those from previous hotfixes, the .inf file, a compilation of the included hotfix .inf files, is not. This is the beta part. Don't underestimate the importance of this: all registry settings are controlled here. In any event, using beta software in a supported microsoft environment is not an option in the professional environment: Waranty violation, or just simply no longer supported.

All in all, both slipstreaming methods will result in the same installation (or there would be a problem here). Gosh saves space on the CD (I don't need it: I have a ton free already).

Now, either my head is still fuzzy this morning, or you overlooked the obvious: With "UPDATE" and UPDATE.INF now hardcoded, what happens with the next hotfix you would like to integrate? Even worse, suppose we have RollUp I and RollUp II?

I do thank you for bringing my attention to [ForceCopyDriverCabFiles]. I have to look into that further. I looks like you listed everything. I wonder if only the files actually in DRIVER.CAB need to be listed? I wonder if this might apply to other .cab files?

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Gosh, I see what you mean. It bloats up the CD quite badly and still takes some time on the 13min mark because of all the downloaded hotfix files its executing. And even when it does that, I can't see any point copying the extracted files into the i386 folder since the hotfix files itself is going to be doing that via [setupHotfixesToRun] so people might as well remove their defined cat files in the svcpack.inf file.

I've also tested a hotfix slipstream a month back, removing all the entries from [setupHotfixesToRun] and leaving the cat entries there. (thus, removing the bloat) It slipstreams and doesn't halt at 13mins but the registry entries are not imported causing Windows Update to report incorrect information. Royalbox and Greenmachine might have possibly found a way round since, but I decided not to go any further as it started to get somewhat complicated :)

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I'll stick with updating after every clean install. An unattend file is NOT what I want as it hinders being able to do things like format within text mode setup and always detects a Windows folder even if the hard disk is RAW (unformatted).

If MS made SP1b instead of just a rollup I would want to go that direction doing a true slipstream (by my definition: Doesn't need svcpack.ini or any of that unattended crap).

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I only used an unattend file to speed up testing. I probably installed xp about 20 times before i got this method right. Using an unattend file saved me about 5 mins per install. But you can slipstream the rollup without using any unattend file.

Just like you can use cmdlines.txt without any unattend file; xp simply looks to see if the file exists, and if it does xp processes it. There's also a switch, i believe autopartition=1, that makes xp setup prompt you for the install destination (i believe the switch is right).

-gosh

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