Kudos to my friend Rado for writing such a great guide on how to create the ultimate Windows XP Installation CD/DVD. This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating an unattended Windows installation CD with the latest hotfixes, drivers, DirectX, IE7, WMP11, Office 2007 and any other software that you would like to include on the CD. Remove useless components, apply tweaks and system hacks for the highest possible performance and productivity.
Don’t miss the video version of this tutorial where you can actually see the whole process of creating a fully customized, unattended installation CD and the result tested and running in VMware Machine.
Requirements:
- nLite 1.4
- Net Framework 2.0
- WinXP CD
Steps:
1. Copy the entire content of your WinXP CD in some local folder.
2. Install .Net Framework 2.0 and nLite.
3. Choose your preferred language on the first screen:
4. Tell nLite where are your WinXP files. Select “Browse” and navigate to the local folder you created in step 1:
5. Choose what you want to do. You can choose only one operation, all of them, or any combination. For example, you can choose to create an ISO and skip the rest:
6. Service Pack: Slipstream a Service Pack into the installation. Just download SP2 for WinXP and nLite will do the rest. If you integrate SP2 you will not need SP1 because SP2 supersedes it.
7. Hotfixes, Addons and Update Packs: Add hotfixes and/or update packs to your installation. Any addons for nLite that you add here will be installed silently during Windows Setup also.
How to get all hotfixes after SP2:
* Use RyanVM Post SP2 Update Pack.
* Install WinXP. Run Windows Update and write down all the required hotfixes. Download them manually from Microsoft.
* Windows Updates Downloader - let this program download all hotfixes for you.
* Information about the hotfix releases could be found here: MSFN, TheHotfixShare and SoftwarePatch
* Windows Media Player 11: Download WMP11 Integrator and the WMP11 installer. Use WMP11 Integrator to slipstream WMP11 into your WinXP CD before making any changes with nLite. Once WMP11 is slipstreamed you can proceed with nLite.
* Internet Explorer 7.0: Just download IE7 and slipstream the .exe with nLite.
* Office 2007: Work in progress!
* Addons: Download more than 350 addons for nLite from WinAddons. These .cab addons will be installed silently during Windows Setup.
Video Tutorial : Slipstream Windows Media Player 11
Video tutorial: Slipstream Internet Explorer 7 with nLite
Video tutorial: Integrate addons with nLite
8. Drivers: Integrate drivers into the installation. Browse to some .inf files and nLite will do the rest. Thanks to http://driverpacks.net/ you can create an installation CD with drivers for almost any piece of hardware. During setup Windows will only use the drivers required and will ignore completely the others. Unused drivers won’t be copied on your hard drive.
Video tutorial: Integrate drivers with nLite
Full article @ http://www.anewmorning.com/2008/01/30/how-to-create-the-ultimate-windows-xp-installation-cddvd/