Hello all,

Can I put sp2 and sp3 in hfslip hf folder together? Or do I have to slipstream it before I put sp3 in? John

SP3 includes SP2. So remove SP2 and only include SP3 in HF folder.

You can include as many SP installers in the HF folder as you want, but HFSLIP will only use the latest -- and only if it's still applicable.

would be a huge waste of time though

service packs are always cumulative and include the functionality of all prior service packs so you only have to put in the latest one and you're good to go

I don't see how. If you still had SP2 from before and now put in SP3, you'd be wasting more time DELETING the SP2 installer...

I read somewhere that you have to have a service pack before applying sp3 is this right? John

no, i manually slipstreamed sp3 on a copy of xppro gold (SP0) that I had just to see how much difference in size there would be between that and if sp3 were slipstreamed on a copy of xpsp2. slipstreamed just fine with no errors (though i didn't install it to see if it worked fine). size difference was negligible - about 8-10 MB

When slipstreaming the service pack it doesn't matter, but you need at least SP1 when installing it normally (though I forgot if that was just for MCE or for all versions of Windows XP).

you have to have at least sp1a to install sp3. dont matter what sp you have if you slipstreaming and if you using mce you cant intergrate it right or media center will downgrade and break features and if you manually install it will also break features. for mce the only option is to allow automatic updates take care of the job.

You don't need SP1 to slipstream SP3.

Microsoft TechNet Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)

Read all the posts written (mid March) by Chris Keroack [MSFT], Chris Keroack, Release Manager, Windows XP Service Pack 3 in this thread here. This is a definitive discussion of what can and cannot be done with SP0.

My conclusion: It is technically OK (although not suppoted by Microsoft) to integrate SP3 into SP0, and install from the resulting bootable CD. However, if you install from a SP0 source, you should then install SP2, and then SP3.

If your source CD is SP2, you might find this thread interesting Integrating SP3 (written in Apr, before SP3 final) that discusses integrating SP3 into SP0 or SP2. It includes a batch file to intregate SP3 into SP2 and cleanup SP2 leftovers in one step, doesn't use nLite.

I don't really see what's so confusing about it. Slipstreaming is not the same as installing.

Really confusing

SP0+SP3 ? or SP2+SP3 ? Which is right? or all right?

Slipstream SP3 into whatever source you have, it dosen't matter, but a SP0 source will be cleanest integrated i.e. contain fever redundant files afterwards...

There's no need for slipstreaming both SP2 + SP3 into a SP0 source, but anyhow, it's not an issue when using HFSLIP, since HFSLIP intelligently only slipstreams the latest SP and ignores any previous ones if present...

It's when not slipstreaming, but installing, that you'll need a SP1(+) source, but that's unrelated to HFSLIP...