Slipstreaming Dell Windows XP SP2

I thought I might offer a little more insite to slipstreaming SP2 using a Dell Windows XP disk (I think it should work with any disk not just Dell). I have been searching for months on how to do this and finally after putting together several instructions I have read I accomplished slipstreaming my Dell cd.

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 Windows XP that did not have SP1a on it. 1st I had to "slipstream" SP1a into my cd, however, the instructions for slipstreaming did not work for SP1a, so I downloaded SP1a from Here download this file to your hard drive and save as XP1a. Copy your original Dell CD to your hard drive (right click "Start" and click on "Explore ") 1. make a new folder on the hard drive and name it XP disk. 2. highlight your cd rom drive that contains the cd, click on tools > folder options > view then make sure "Display system folders" and "Show hidden files and folders" is checked 3. Open the installation disk, highlight all the folders then edit > copy to folder and select the folder you just set up named XP disk. Next unzip SP1a into C:\XP\I386 folder (answer yes to all to replace existing files). You will also need to download the full IT Tech version of SP2 from Here and save it to a folder on your hard drive, name it XP2 (or order it on disk it is a 270mg file). Next following the instructions on This Site create your slipstreamed disk.

Using your cd burning software you will need to make a bootable disk (instructions are on the site link above). You must 1st extract the boot disk .img from your original Windows XP disk using ISO buster which can be downloaded from Here using the free version.

The site link above tells you to extract the "Microsoft Corporation.img" file. However, the boot .img file on my Dell cd was Arnie's Boot.img. In short the file you want to extract is whatever .img file is in the boot cd file you open with ISO buster.

Hope this makes things a little more understandable. Once I put together a few instructions on many sites I researched it was so simple. Too bad there wasn't a site titled "Slipstreaming for Dummies ".

 

This might add some more info
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_svcpacks&message.id=283

 

Well you would think that wouldn't you. BUT I was not able to slipstream my Dell Windows XP disk until AFTER I applied SP1a (I have been trying for weeks), then everything went like a charm.

I have in the past reformated my hard drive with my orginal Windows disk (minus SP1) and immediately installed the IT Tech version of SP2, then went to Windows update and still had numerous critial updates that were released before SP2 that had to be installed.

But yeah, that is what I figured, applying SP2 was retroactive and would take care of any critical updates prior to it's release, especially using the IT Tech full version, but evidently not so.

 

My friend had a Dell XPSP1 cd and I successfully slipstreamed the SP2 into it. I've used it for him and it worked perfectly. I just made sure the whole cd was copied onto the harddrive first, including the proprietery OEM folder and all the shortcuts in the root. I also include the files in the root directory of the Microsoft XP SP2 cd and the folders with the help files they point to. This way I get the readme's and installation dialogs from SP2. Actually the only folder that gets left out is the one with DotNetFX in it as it would make the cd image too big. I also leave out the stand alone SP2 file, of course. That would be redundant. I'm going from memory so I forget exactly which files I leave out but when I make one I look it over so it makes sense. I think leaving out the file that autoruns XP SP2 is kind of obvious! That would be looking for the SP2 file! I just leave the autorun from the original cd. But it's nice that when the cd does autorun its links are all to the SP2 help files. It becomes a standard XPSP2 Windows install cd. Only with the Dell customizations left on. I did the same for myself, although my XP is the original Gold XP Home.

I also did a Gateway for another friend and it worked fine as well. His cd is a Gateway XP Gold (no SP). No special instructions, but I just made sure to include the OEM stuff Gateway had on there.