Hi Guys,

I read in one of the threads the Tomcat has a fix for one of the SP3 slipstream issues and is waiting till after patch Tuesday before he releases a fix. Which is is cool

I was just wondering if there would also be a fix for the problems SP3 is causing MCE when slipstreaming e.g. overwriting setup files making it install as XP Pro.

Thanks Guys.

I think you misread. I was only referring to the fact that IE7 updates are not supported with SP3 because they only have SP2 binaries. Other problems related to IE7/WMP11 should be fixed in 1.7.6 (RC available in test releases thread).

I still need to test MCE, but I can already tell you that HFSLIP doesn't do anything special with the slipstreaming of Service Packs. It's just a standard command, so if that action turns MCE into Pro then either there's a bug in the SP3 installer or MS are intending to release a seperate SP3 specifically for MCE.

Yep, that sounds like me.

I've tried the last couple of Betas on MCE, everyone [appears] to update MCE fine when applied to an install.
But they have all broken the install if slipstreamed.

As far as i'm aware theres nothing in SP3 for MCE or Tablet Ed. subsets.
So would they really make seperate SP3's ?
Anyway, we'll all find out next week.

no separate sp3 for mce. the only way to update mce to sp3 will be via windowsupdate unless tc/tp can come up with something

I took a close look at the extracted SP. a subfolder called "root" has a bunch of updated files for the components folder, which include Mediactr, tabletpc, and netfx. This is what gets updated during an install - perhaps these updated files need to be installed via hfslip at a later point in setup? (Would that make any sense?) I realize that the nastiest way to workaround this issue at the moment is to integrate SP3 as a Guirunonce application, so that on first boot, the service pack gets installed, thus mimicking a slipstream in the simplist way possible for this situation. Luckily, most of the time when I install Media Center, I'm bound to put it on a DVD, so all in all, it really just makes the install twice as long, and bloated. Someone's bound to figure this out.

I tested with MCE and I can confirm the problem.

I also inspected the SP3 installer and I believe the problem is in there. The updated binaries seem to exist (as jimmsta noted), but the update files specific to XP MCE are not. For example, I couldn't find a sysoc.inf that installs the Media Center components.

So slipstreaming appears to be impossible, at least with RC2 of SP3. Maybe it will be fixed in the final.

SP3 is reportedly not going to work with MCE from what I have heard

@Kelsenellenelvian,

Yeah, I saw an [un-offical] quote from MS earlier that SP3 is just for Home and Pro.
Looks like MS could be dropping MCE and Tablet Ed.


@Tomcat76,

Is this problem a major one, or one that could be "worked round" by HPSlip. [Hint Hint]


@Everyone,

Thats for looking into and confirming this problem guys.
I thought I was going nutz for awhile.

like i said, xpmce will only be able to be updated to sp3 via automatic updates/windowsupdate

i have automatic updates enabled on my xpmce with it selected to download but not automatically install updates so i'm thinking supposing i save a copy of the folder that automatic updates (whenever it becomes available) downloads sp3 into, then i upload it somewhere and you guys can figure out what the difference is between generic sp3 and whatever they got going for xpmce and the tc/tp could work something out for hfslip/xpmce/sp3?

I've been trying to integrate. This is what I've found so far, hope it helps.

SP3 has upates for the core files of MCE, but doesn't update them for some reason during integration.

Extract CD1 to folder [CD1]
Copy CMPNENTS folder from cd2 to cd1 folder
Integrate SP3
Extract sp3.exe [SP3]
Go to extracted SP3 folder SP3\i386\root\cmpnents\mediactr\i386
Expand all the xx.XX_ files then delete them, leaving only expanded files and the .cab and .exe file/files
Go to CMPNENTS\MEDIACTR\I386 in CD1 folder
Extract the MEDIACTR.CAB then delete cab
Copy the expanded files from SP3 folder to \CMPNENTS\MEDIACTR\I386 overwriting files when needed
Now select all files and remake the MEDIACTR.CAB and delete expanded files once cab file made
Make ISO
Installs without errors, the setuperr log will be clean and all the core files will be 5512. WIll be WMP 2002 SP3 [files in c:\WINDOWS\ehome folder will be 5.1.2600.5512]
WMP11 won't install, but WMP10 will. Try any of the rollup patches and will say need Wrong Version need MCE 2005.
Been able to integrate WMP11 with KB941569 And IE7 with KB947864 also
Worried if updates will be offered later when done this way.

Only tested in Virtual.

now that sp3 is out officially, can the hfslip guys, tc and tp make hfslip do something along the lines suggested by hotrod ?

It's not as simple as that.

I found a sysoc.inf for MCE inside the SP3 package (it's named sysocmce.inf and it's in the i386 folder). Editing TXTSETUP.SIF and DOSNET.INF is easy, and adding extra hives to allow installation of the MCE-specific programs shouldn't be too hard either. But that's where the good news ends.

There are 20 new Media Center binaries (not "updated", but "new" binaries) for the MEDIACTR.CAB package, so a source HFSLIP can work with can't be created unless HFSLIP were to rewrite medctroc.inf completely. This would require a lot of code, and languages with double-byte characters wouldn't be supported.

The updated Media Center binaries require .NET Framework 1.1, which is not included in SP3. So they can't be slipstreamed, actually. This is the reason why HFSLIP doesn't slipstream the *MediaCenter2005*.exe updates. MS could've copied the OC install version of .NET 1.1 from Server 2003 but they haven't.

Slipstreaming SP3 replaces existing WMP10 binaries with WMP9 binaries. It will take time to find out which ones are to be restored, and how.

can't we just put medctroc.inf into replace\i386 so it just replaces the prior version and doesn't have to be rewritten in its entirety ?

That's the only solution. And then use the Media Center 2005 rollup updates.

That still leaves us with resurrecting WMP10...

well why don't we integrate wmp11 instead and leave resurrecting the ghost of wmp10 for some other day

will that work ?

now that v1.7.6 is out, i thought I'd give this topic a *gentle bump*

hi! there's an addon prepared by orbit30 here: [Addon] Media Center Edition 2005 v4., Converts your windows operating system to Media Center Edition 2005 ... there's a separate one for those using wmp11 ... might be worth a try (although the creator would still prep for 1 that's going to consider the final sp3 rel which would perhaps confirm there could be an issue with sp3) ... will look forward to how hfslip will take care of the concerns brought up though ... i'm confident tc, tp & the rest will be able to hurdle this thanks!

does this have the files that were updated by SP3 and also the new ones that were added by SP3?

hello! members are still waiting for orbit30 to update it as he promised (when his free with his vista projects) ... on a related note, this may be trivial but i'd still like to share THIS

oh, so he's wasting his time these days

by the way, i windowsupdated my MCE today to SP3 today. it started out as an HFSLIPped copy of windows, about 11-12 month old now, AMD processor. so far so good!