Kevin Remde's IT Pro Weblog
"Can I slipstream Windows Vista SP1 into an existing install image?"
Nope. Well, not directly, anyway.
"Um.. but when I get SP1, I want to upgrade my deployable .WIM images with the new bits. I can't do that in an offline way like I can with other updates?"
Sorry. No.
"Are you going to tell me why?"
Absolutely! You don't think I would have opened up this nasty can of worms without giving you a good explanation, did you?
"Well..."
Okay. So here's the deal**. And those of you who have experienced the SP1 installation have experienced this as well. When you do the SP1 installation, even if it's from Windows Update (when available), you're going to see your machine shutdown and restart on it's own several times. That's to be expected.
See, there's this important part of the OS known as the "servicing layer" in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. This is the part of the OS that allows for easy update installation with minimal disruptions, allows for an update to be applied to an offline captured image that's within a .wim file, among other things.
Well.. let's say that that servicing layer ALSO needed to be updated? What then?
"Oh.. I get it. You can't update the thing that makes the updates happen smoothly, because the thing that makes updates go smoothly is itself being updated!"
Bingo. You got it. So hopefully the news that you can't just do an offline upgrade to an image .WIM file won't be too tragic.
"So.. what do I do instead?"
You are going to have to install your image to a machine. Install the Service Pack. Then re-capture the image.
"Simple!"
Not so simple. There are additional steps that involve some cleanup once you've sysprepped your newly updated SP1 machine. Detailed steps are available in the new WAIK documentation.
"Won't I lose a valuable re-arm to my image when I apply the service pack this way?"
No. SP1 grants you an additional re-arm. We don't want you to be penalized for having to generalize a system that additional time.
"Wait.. there's a new WAIK?"
If you're using the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit), you will definitely want to get the new version that has support for both the original Vista as well as the new servicing layer that's in both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.
Of course, the easiest way to do this all would be to get a copy pre-slipstreamed SP1 version of Windows Vista from Microsoft when it becomes available, and start with that as your new installation base. If you're not doing any other custom image management, that's definitely the easiest solution. Just add it to your own Microsoft Deployment workbench or use it to build your new images from there.
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** I can never say "here's the deal" without thinking of former teammate-turned-security-guru, Kai "the Security Guy" Axford.
Ohhh c'mom now. This no slipping thing is c-r-a-p!!! How in the name of god, a company that is worth billions and billions of dollars, with tens of thousand on their workforce, with virtually unlimited resources can release unstable service packs for the general public?
"you've only got that one image to update."
That right there is incorrect. Applying this method to multiple computers results in multiple outcomes. Out of the three computers I tested this on after running the WAIK the results are:
One computer works fine, except the printer won't print now.
One of the comptuers seems to boot normal, but is slower than before. We think it's the prefetch catching up, but it's been this way for almost a week now. At least it prints.
One computer continually reboots. It appears the HD controller is having problems.
Agree that this method is completely inadequete and seriously prone to errors. I'm not sure if this is just a symptom of SP1 or an issue with the ISO and WAIK I ran, but absolutely the state of Vista is in serious trouble at the moment in my honest opinion and we can't get the dang thing stable on a majority of systems to save our lives. Some systems Vista works fine. Most have niggling little problems all over the place. A few won't even boot now. All of them are slower than the users are comfortable with and we can't afford to deck out every machine with 4 GB of ram just to make Vista work like XP did 5 years ago. That's the real tragedy.
Pointless. Just download the already slipstreamed version from the tens of thousands of torrents listed on the Pirate Bay and be done with is. Congratulations MS, you've turned us all into pirates.
Consider yourselves all lucky.
I've tried SP1 twice now. My desktop goes into the endless reboot as others have found:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9063158&intsrc=hm_list
My laptop can't install the prerequisites for the pre-patches. For some unknown reason, Microsoft requires a separate installation for required patches rather than place them all in the same update. What really sucks is that another patch broke my Media Center and it kept crashing, uninstalling the patch fixes the problem, but SP1 will load that piece of sh#t patch right back on it too I just found out.
Here's hoping everyone on the Vista team has an absolutely craptastic day. Seriously. Have a craptastic day and I hope you are all fired real soon for this piece of sh!t OS you've built.
Has anyone actually tried this method? Installed Vista. Okay. Installed SP1. Disaster. My SATA hard drive suddenly wasn't recognized and Vista went into a nice boot, fail, reboot. Opened the case, plugged the drive into the secondary SATA port and got it back. That's definately going to be a problem with a HUGE amount of people IMHO. Also found out that I lost about 5 GB during the upgrade process. WTF? Anyway, did disk cleanups and defrags. Still missing about 2 GB of space I have no idea where it went to.
Moving on, installed the Windows Automated Installation Kit from the suggested web site. Had another WTF moment when I realized it was over a GB in size! RIDICULOUS! In any case, got it installed, ran it and...bam..."error 800451 fault in application". Of course, TechNet, MSDN, nothing has any indication of what this error means.
Already put 10 hours into this process. No more. Either Microsoft makes a download site where I can put my key in and download a new copy with the SP1 slipstreamed or, frankly, they can take Vista and shove it where the sun don't shine. This is ridiculous for their flagship operating system to have so many boneheaded obstancles we all have to run around just to get it to work.
Honesty and Microsoft huh? Kevin, give me some of what you must be smokin' cause you are one masochist or something.
I give up. I give up. I GIVE UP!!! Next time I'm buying a Mac, I swear!
FYI, Microsoft has completely suspended the SP1 prerequisites download due to major problems:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/19/update-on-windows-vista-sp1-prerequisite-kb937287.aspx
What a mess.
We ran this tool and created a new image. First deployment killed the previous working Vista RTM touchpad driver on a new 2-week old Dell laptop. Second deployment causes the endless reboot on another 1 month old Dell 1500 series laptop. Calling the number basically resulted in "try booting from the DVD..." Of course, once we mentioned the above imaging method Microsoft simply threw up their arms and suggested we reinstall everything from scratch.
Funny thing, we actually reported this very problem to Microsoft a few months ago during the RC build. I guess they never got around to fixing it.
So we gave it one more shot on a desktop. Everything worked great...until we switched to the second montior. Switching monitors causes Vista to BSOD and reboot every time. Fortunately we fixed this by uninstalling the video driver and reinstalling it...which we also had to do for the print driver.
Needless to say our testing has been brought to a screeching halt until we can obtain a SP1 integrated DVD. I normally don't use the word "suck", but in this case I'll make an exception. This sucks.
Did anyone...anyone...ANYONE outside of Microsoft test this in any way?/ This is getting tiresome. I'm spending MORE time fixing my OS than enjoying it. This is a big step-backwards and I hope someone out there is addressing this because we are NOT moving to Vista in this current state.
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Kevin, as far as creating an image, which imaging tools does Microsoft provide so that I can create and burn the ISO? I don't see any good options in Vista to create the ISO image. I can do it in Nero, but then I'd have to install Nero on the image and I don't want to do that.
I'm apparently going to have to use this method as we are a smaller business with only about 20 computers. I can't get a copy from MS apparently unless I agree to sign up for their licensing program first (they want to license 25 computers...5 more than we need...totally lame) and I'm not willing to download a copy from a hacker site.
Thanks.
"You are going to have to install your image to a machine. Install the Service Pack. Then re-capture the image."
There is NO good reason why we can't just replace files from one directory with newer files from another directory. I'm not the sharpest task in the box, but I'm not stupid either. Does Microsoft think I'm stupid? I want to see the whitepaper detailing how a company ***ANY company*** has used the above method to integrate SP1. Doing a search of google doesn't pull up any results for me. It just shows the level of pain people are going through trying to get this to work. This method is for the birds. Microsoft, get off your butts and either provide the full download for those who have a valid key or write a slipstream application that can do this. Again, we're talking about replacing older files with newer files and updating the config files. There is NO EXCUSE for ANY OTHER method.
errrr - task = tack. Sorry for the misspelling
Egads. I was hoping there would be an easy method to the Vista madness once SP1 was released. I see it's more of the same ill-thought out processes that we've seen 1 year ago with the RTM. Nothing seems polished or finished. Everything seems rushed and features are being dropped left and right. Now, slipstreaming has been dropped, there will be multiple versions of an SP that is already months late and still dealing with huge driver problems.
I would really like to meet the developer that can convince me that applying Vista, running the service pack one setup, installing the installation kit, ghosting, and the deploying was a brilliant solution over just slipstreaming. It certainly couldn't have been easier than just using the same method we've all used for years now, right? Is there some major reason for this other than "we did it because we had to fix Vista...again"? That response offers me, the customer, nothing but pain and was obviously the easiest way out (with negative customer benefit) for the developers with the onus falling on the customer. Either way, two thumbs WAY down to whoever made this technical change.