I just recently upgraded to Windows Vista from XP. Then I had to wait for all the updates to install, then go around to all my hardware manufacturers websites to download there drivers and that also took awhile. Well, I found this little tool called vLite, that I wish I would have had when I did the upgrade. vLite is a tool that allows you to customize a Windows Vista installation disk and add all the hotfixes, drivers, and updates to the disk before using it.

Slipstreaming SP1

1. Download and run vLite, then place your Vista disk into your optical drive and select it as your source of your installation files.
2. Then vLite will copy the files to a new location on your hard drive.
3. The next screen that is going to come up is one asking you what you want to add to the disk. So in my case I wanted to add SP 1, so I clicked that option.
4. After that it ask me for the location of the SP1 files so I download the SP1 files to my desktop and directed vLite there.
5. Then I clicked next and after about an hour I was done, I had just slipstreamed SP1 into my Vista install disk.

Adding Updates and Drivers

After you have slipstreamed SP1 click on the tasks tab and check all five boxes of tweaking pages then click next. Then you can click the hotfixes tab to add the patches you have downloaded. The driver tab is to add the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s website to the disk. You can also add additional language packs to the slipstreamed disk of you would like. Then, with whatever you have added, click Enable to slipstream the updates and drivers onto the disk. There is also a Components window that allow you to remove any features from Vista that you don’t want on this disk. The next page is the tweak page that allows you to turn off some other features like the user account Controls and the power schemes. This also allows you to turn off the services in Vista that you do not want to run. Then finally, click next and you’re done. Pick the imaging technique you want to use and burn your slipstreamed disk.

The process for creating a slipstreamed disk for XP is just as easy but, you will want to use a program called NLite.

I wrote a week ago about slipstreaming SP3 into a Windows XP install CD, but what if you want to do the same thing for Windows Vista using the recently released SP1? If so, this article walks you through the process.

After comparing the two processes, it seems the Vista method is much more complex. Microsoft seems to have concentrated more on making Vista easier and faster to patch as opposed to the slipstreaming method. One advantage to this is you can use the vLite tool to “trim the fat” off your Windows Vista install and have your settings built into a custom installation DVD.

I haven’t tried this method, but I would be interested to hear any feedback from readers who have.

If you find yourself performing clean installations of Windows XP often, you may want to take the time to build your own installation CD which includes the recently released SP3. This process is called “slipstreaming” and basically creates an install CD which includes SP3 as part of the installation process.

This process is very easy to do and is outlined in detail in this article. The author explains exactly what you will need and how to incorporate SP3 and tweak some settings to create your own installation CD. Again, this will mostly benefit those who do several XP installations, so if you don’t plan on loading another computer, this probably wouldn’t benefit you too much.