DRIVER.CAB filesize is different on SP0 & SP2 discs - why?

[prathapml]

http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t75486.html

While looking thru a recent XPSP2 home-retail Windows CD, I noticed that its DRIVER.CAB filesize was different from the original (RTM, SP0).

So then I compared an SP0+SP2 slip-streamed disc, and a new disc that comes with SP2 out-of-the-box.

slip-streamed : 73.1 MB

new retail disc: 60.1 MB

The SP2.cab & drvindex.inf filesize remains same on both. Moreover, when doing a folder-compare, the new retail XPSP2 disc was missing a *LOT* files!

But it still installs fine & seems to be normal in operation. Could this be because the files that are updated in SP2.cab have been removed from DRIVER.CAB in the newer discs? Am not quite believing that as a possible reason, would like to see if this is normal, and whether the same happens on VLK (corp) discs too.

What is the filesize of YOUR driver.cab ?

Why is this size-difference happening?

Edited March 15, 2007 by prathapml

[Yzöwl]

VRMPFPP_EN (XP Pro MSDN SP2)

• Size: 60.1 MB (63,044,788 bytes)
  
• Date /Time: 2004-08-04 @04:00
  

[prathapml]

it gets curioser & curiouser!

[Sonic]

That's true.

Microsoft SP2 discs (MCE 2k5, Home, Pro, Retail or MSDN or OEM) is "more" optimized/cleaned than a manual split-stream (no reference to sp1 and .cab are updated ...)

btw, I have always use the ms sp2 disc and no problem.