Slipstreaming Can Be Fun and Easy

Today I was able to take a Windows 2000 Professional CD and, thanks to the delightfully easy to use nLite tool, slipstream both Service Pack 4 and the Post-SP4 Update Rollup 1 into it and mash everything into a new, bootable .ISO file.

I then proceeded to take this ISO and copy it onto the closest machine I had with a CD burner in it. This happened to be my Apple iBook. Using the iBook's Disk Utility, I opened the ISO and burned it to a blank CD-R. Taking the new CD, I returned it to the machine running nLite and rebooted. It is currently reformatting itself in order to install Windows 2000 on it.

One would suspect that Microsoft would work some sort magic to make it hard to burn ISOs of their operating system, fair-use copies or otherwise. Nonetheless, thanks to nLite and Disk Utility, the Windows slipstreaming process is quick, clean, and downright painless. No more will I have to install Windows 2000 from genuine source discs only to have to visit Windows Update a dozen times just to bring the OS up to snuff in terms of critical patches.

nLite even lets me configure which services I want on or off by default. Did somebody say "Messenger service = disabled"? Yes. I think it was me.