Slipstreaming Pro's and Con's

burdon

Hey,


I am writing a report on Slipstreaming windows XP with windows updates, some packaged software that I use on this network and drivers (maybe)

I learned all about creating these CD's and intergrating software to them like SP2.

I was just wondering if someone knows of any Pros or cons in doing slipstreaming?

Thanks
Burdon

seamus

The only con to slipstreaming is that you don't necessarily get to choose what updates to include.

If an update included in SP2 (for example) conflicts with a driver on the machine you'll be using, then you can't choose to exclude that. If it conflicts with software you're using, you don't get the option to roll back SP2, you have to reimage the machine.

Ultimately though these issues are slight and can be eliminated by proper testing and by including any patches in the slipstream which correct such issues.

burdon

Thanks
After you have intergrated SP2 into the build, is it not possible to install the MS updates and Patches? Or would i be better odd leaving them until the OS is installed and then download them from http://support.microsft.com

any advice would be appreciated?

Cheers
Burdon

seamus

When you're building the slipstreamed install, you can add in any patches or updates that you want. Service Packs will always override any older patches, so if you slipstream in SP2, then any patches before SP2 are overridden. Then you can slipstream in any patches or updates that were released after SP2.

However, because these are slipstreamed, they cannot be removed from the OS when you do the install. So in the event that you do discover a conflict between a patch and your hardware/software, you can't just roll it back.
Imagine having built 50 machines and later finding out that a security update causes your AV software to fail and the machine to keep crashing. You would need to create a new slipstreamed CD and rebuild all of the machines.
More often than not however, when such issues appear there is a further patch that will solve the problem which can just be rolled out over the network.

In practice, unless you've heavily customised the build and are doing a massive deployment, this isn't a big problem. You can't go wrong slipstreaming SP2 and then slipstreaming all updates released up to 6 months ago.

DemonOfTheFall

Look into RyanVM's forums at msfn. Pretty big resource for slipstreaming and un-attended setups.

http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/

His Post-SP2 update pack is an amazing starting point for a customised disk, and the other addon packs have just about any piece of software pre-packaged for slipstreaming.

bambam

and also if you haven't already, check out the utility 'nlite'. It has native support for ryanvm packages. So you can take an XP SP2 cd and mash in ryans collection of fixes/patches, which would make you up-to-date as of july this year I think.

Standard Toaster

Also consider slipstreaming drivers:

http://www.driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

Tiy can save yourself hours using slipstreamed images, drivers packs and syspreped images on a corp network.

Also, look into using WIM images to intergrate future patches/servicepacks.