Installing Windows with Recent Updates?

MoJo asks: "As a computer technician, I have to re-install Windows often. It takes three attempts to complete Windows Update (get latest update software, validate Windows, download updates). It seems like all this clicking could be scripted somehow, but I can find no-one who has found a way of reducing the whole painful affair to just one or two clicks." Is there a way to build a Windows installation CD that includes the most recent set of updates?

Google is your friend

[MeanMF]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-09,GGLD:en&q=windows+ins tallation+cd+with+recent+updates [google.com]

Re:Are the systems identical?

[gEvil (beta)]

Welcome to the world of site licenses and concurrent use licenses.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Use something like Acronis

[slaker]

So it doesn't bother you to have lots of PCs on your network with identical SIDs?

If you're taking the step of imaging, use Sysprep (google it) to make each install clean and unique, or at the very least find a copy of GHSTWALK.exe to run after the fact.

The ISO files don't help you at all.

[Futurepower(R)]

My understanding is that the ISO files don't help you at all. They are huge because they include all languages. Each ISO file includes only the critical updates for ONE month. I know of no way to integrate them into a single CD image containing Windows XP SP2 and all the critical updates.

It is possible to download all the separate critical updates, and run them from a batch file. But that's a hassle; Microsoft does not make that easy. This is another way that Microsoft is adversarial towards customers; they waste the time of some of the best-educated people in the world.

Re:Ever hear of Terminal Server?

[mnmn]

Doesnt work too well for all apps, and youre keeping all your eggs in one basket there. Performance becomes an issue fast. Not to mention upgrading or restoring from backups becomes impossible without disrupting everyone's desktops settings and other files.

Solutions like yours exist already. There are terminal client versions of XP and other companies including sun were selling real cheap graphic terminal thin clients a while ago. Not a smashing success.

And yelling and screaming on slashdot doesnt convince anyone at all.

Re:Are the systems identical?

[rikkards]

I'm a little hazy on the legalities of this as well. The way it's always been explained to me is that you need a licnece of Ghost to create an image. Also, if you're running the full-on Windows client, you will of course need a license for that. However, I've always been told that when restoring an image to a PC, it is legally permitted to use the DOS version of Ghost without a licence for that PC. Now whether or not that's true, I'm not sure. I've never bothered to read the licence documentation, instead trusting the word of my higher ups.

Nope you need to have a Ghost license for every single workstation that will have a Ghost image applied to it. I was involved in an update for a site of approx 17000 users and they mentioned that they would have to buy new licenses for all the machines if they decided to Ghost. They started investigating RIP from MS which comes free.

Sysprep is your friend you can get the machine to do practically everything including join to a domain (use an account that only has permissions to join a domain so that you don't divulge a key account) as well as creating generic images. I had an image that would work on over 8 different desktops and about 6 laptops.

Re:MSFN's Unattended Windows Install CD

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Its not that hard to use google. Do you realy want it that bad but are unwilling to search for it?"

It's perfectly reasonable to want to hear the opinions of others that have gone through it. No need to be an asshole.

Re:Google is your friend

[Achromatic1978]

You did notice that the search terms he fed into Google didn't include 'slipstreaming', but only a couple of keywords the questioner asked in the article?

Re:Terminal Server?

[dotgain]

Install Cross-Over Office or WINE if you need to and your Windows applications work..
No more issues. Yeah, sure looks like you've tried it...

Automated Deployment Services + Slipstream

[AlphaSys]

If you haven't very demanding third-party driver support, install Automated Deployment Services [microsoft.com] (the successor to RIS) and slipstream your source. Stop wasting CDs and ISO burn time and do it in a truly manageable way. Even involved driver dependencies can be integrated, but you have to actually learn about what you're doing to make that happen. But when you need to deploy a lot of windows servers at once or the same kind over and over, this is the most straightforward way to get a consistent build and keep the patches current.

Re:It's called Slipstreaming

[baadger]

It would be nice if Microsoft would make it easy to script the install onto one CD (or DVD).

All hotfix installers released since XP-SP2 have had an /integrate switch to do just that.

Re:Google is your friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't visit stories in which you have no interest.

Re:Google is your friend

[RandomJoe]

Interesting. Provided the customer brings in their original install discs, just so you can prove they had them, how would MS or anyone KNOW that you used your own slipstreamed copy of the same version OS? Is there actually something individually keyed on each of those (non-corporate) versions? I always figured they were just identical discs. Then you plug in the customer's own license key at the end...

Seems like as long as the customer shows up with a valid XP/2K/98/however-far-back-you-go CD, you'd be able to pull out your image of it and no one would be the wiser. Granted, it wouldn't have the brand-specific crap that gets loaded from the likes of Dell and Gateway, perhaps that's the issue.

When you say "not ours, not an OEM disc, not a copy" do you actually mean you can't restore a customer's computer from one of those stupid "image" discs the OEMs were providing for a while?!? I as a customer would have major issues with that, considering that's the only "original" disk they provided. (Well, _I_ wouldn't... I never even boot Windows on my own new machines, but you know... ;) Did they provide a rational explanation for this bit?

WSUS

[bstempi]

Windows Server Update Services.
Instead of building a CD, I took into account that new updates will come out all of the time. Working in an environment of 150+ pcs, this also turns out to be a bandwidth hog. So, i turned to WSUS.

Think of WSUS as a local MSUpdate repo. I tell the server what upates I want, it downloads them, and then distributes them. The only other thing i had to do was to adjust every computers group policy to look for updates from my server at midnight every night. Doing this under active directory is REALLY easy.

Re:Slipstreaming

[Karma Farmer]

now go fix/explain American political "rhetoric" please.

Public rhetoric in American politics has two parts:

1. Cynical politicians pushing wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations, and
2. Cynical talking heads on 24-hour news stations yelling at each other about wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations.

Most of the public face of politics looks like a Jerry Springer show (and is about as real as the Jerry Springer show was) because our politicians find it immensely profitable. Divisive policies (like gay marriage or abortion) and divisive nominations (like Alito) are pushed by both sides because they're very successful fund raising mechanisms, not for ideological reasons.

But frankly, I think we have to worry a lot more about the parts we don't see. The part of the iceberg above the water didn't sink the Titanic.