Slipstreaming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)

This is a guide which shows you how to integrate/slipstream service pack 1 to your copy of Windows Vista DVD. There have been many articles doing the rounds on the internet as how to slipstream Service Pack 1 into Vista. Well as of now there is only one method which is reported to be working and that is by reverse integration which means that you have to install a fresh copy of Vista and then SP1 onto it to integrate service pack into it

I will be carrying out the slipstreaming process by myself (both on 32 & 64-Bit editions of Vista) and will include any issues with the process if any. Meanwhile read on the article given below.

Well here is the way to do that

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 latest build 6001.16633 limited pre-beta release was available for download in .EXE standalone executable format. Microsoft does not provide any guide on how users can apply SP1 update to offline extracted Windows Vista DVD setup files, or slipstream SP1 into Vista RTM DVD ISO image so that the subsequently installed Vista will directly have the service pack. In fact, the slipstream option is not officially supported for stand-alone version of SP1 in this pre-beta executable, and Microsoft will only release slipstream version of Vista SP1 retail media or Volume Licensing DVD after SP1 goes live.

However, a method of repacking an install.wim to make a Vista SP1 integrated media image is possible by using WinBeta SP1 Reverse Integration Guide. The disadvantage of reverse integration method is that it requires a complete install of Vista RTM in order to integrate the service pack. For those who intends to slipstream Vista SP1, this may be the only way to do it as Microsoft does not provide any switches in the .exe executable to allow for simple integration, and Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) are not designed for SP1, which a single executable spinstall.exe consists of 5 CAB files with windows6.0-kb936330-X86.cab been main CAB file, nor vLite integration will work.

According to WinBeta, reverse integration of Vista SP1 works as per guide below:
Install Vista RTM to a secondary partition (not the main boot partition). The primary reason for this is one doesn’t want all the boot associated files of that computer related to BCD and boot.ini being part of the final image.
Once in the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) after setup, type Ctrl-Shift-F3 to enter Audit mode. In case you’re wondering what/where OOBE is, it is the part after setup where the user is setting up his/her username, password etc.
The system will then reboot into Audit mode and a Sysprep window will pop up. Do not close the Sysprep window.
Run the Vista SP1 installer and let it do its thing.
After the SP1 setup is complete, you’ll find yourself back at the main Vista desktop with the Sysprep window open and SP1 will be installed and ready to go. From the Sysprep selection window, select OOBE, Generalize, and to Shut Down the system.
Boot the system into a WinPE disk or another OS install (ie. XP), do NOT boot back into Vista, and run the following imagex command (imagex can be found in Windows Automated Installation Kit):

imagex /compress maximum /flags “Business” /capture d: c:\install.wim “Windows Vista Business”

(where d: is the drive Vista is installed on and c:\install.wim is the location to store the new install.wim. Replace “Business” with whatever edition of Vista you are installing and replace the drive letters with your own.)
Once the image has been built, replace the old install.wim in the Vista RTM ISO in \Sources\ with the newly created install.wim using a registered version of UltraISO (Version 8.0 or higher). Save the ISO and you’re done.

You can also rebuild the ISO using vLite by extracting the contents of the Vista RTM ISO to a temporary directory, replacing the install.wim and using vLite’s Vista Burning/ISO creation features. One can also use vLite to remove unwanted features in Vista SP1 even though vLite was primarily designed/tested on Vista RTM.

It has to be noted that the above method is for a single edition of Vista. If one wanted to integrate SP1 into all the editions of Vista, they would have to follow Steps 1-5 for each edition and use the imagex /append function to build an install.wim that contains all the editions of Vista.

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