Creating OS Slip Streamed Media with Nlite
In a previous post I discussed Nlite at a very high level and walked through the setup of the application. The idea behind the software is to easily integrate service packs, drivers, or other needed applications that will speed up the installation of an operating system and create media with all of the needed components added or removed.
Here I will walk through the use of the Nlite application to create new media containing a service pack.
Note: In the examples for this post I used Windows Server 2003, but the process will work for other versions of Windows as well.
Open the Nlite console from the Startt -> All Programs menu. When the application starts up it will present a wizard to walk you through the process of creating new media.
The wizard opens with the screen shown below in figure A.
Figure A
Select the language for this slip stream
Select the language to use in creating the slipstreamed media and click next to continue. Language selection does not change the language used by the software you are using as the source on the next screen. The selection there only pertains to the language for the wizard while creating the new media.
On the next screen in the nLite wizard, you will be asked to specify a Windows installation source. Usually the best way to achieve an accurate installation source is to make use of the original media.
For example, if you have the media for an original installation of Windows XP, you could use that as the source and download the service packs to incorporate.
Figure B shows the wizard screen for selecting a source, click the browse button to location the installation source nLite should use. This source will be read and the details displayed on below the browse option. Once you have confirmed nLite can see your source media, click Next.
Figure B
Choose an installation source
When you click next after specifying the source the wizard will pop up a dialog asking you to choose where you would like to save these files for modification. The window shown looks like the Figure B above. Click OK on the dialog box and then select a location (or create a new folder) to hold the files for modification. Choosing a folder is shown in figure C.
Figure C
Choose a destination folder
Once you have found the folder where the items can be kept for the wizard to use, click OK. nLite will copy the files from the source media to the folder specified in the previous step. When the copy process completes, verify the details of the source and click next to continue.
Figure D
Source files are copied to destination
On the screen shown in figure E, you can import settings from previous trips through nLite. For the purposes of this post, I will not be covering the import process. The screen is shown below for completeness and can save you time the more you use the product.
Figure E
Import previous customizations
To bypass the presets screen simply click next.
The remainder of the nLite wizard focuses on the items you want to add or remove from the new media you are creating. It not only supports adding drivers, service packs, and other necessary files, but also removing unwanted components. In a future post, I will look at the components that can be taken away using the nLite application as well as presets for speedier configurations.
On the task selection screen, shown in figure F, you will see there are four sections.
- Integrate - this section allows you to choose the type of item you wish to add to the source installation.
- Remove - this option will allow you to remove existing functionality
- Setup - helps in the creation of unattended media, changing options during setup and applying tweaks to existing options.
- Create - the create option is where the new image or media is created.
Figure F
Select the items to customize
In this post I will walk through integrating a service pack with original media. To perform this task click the Service Pack option and then click the Bootable ISO choice under create, shown selected below in figure G.
Figure G
Select output to create
Once the options to modify the media have been chosen, click next to proceed. In our example to slipstream a service pack you will be prompted to select the update.exe file for the service pack to integrate. The wizard option to select this is shown in figure H.
Figure H
Select files to slipstream
Notice the links on the bottom of the select screen. These are links to the latest service packs for each supported operating system. When clicked they will take you to the Internet to download the files needed.
If you did not choose an option to create an image or other media on the tasks page of the wizard, the nLite application will end when you click next. This will create a preset configuration for use in the future, but will not create any ISO images or CDs.
If you did select an item to create on the tasks page, the wizard will advance to another page to assist in creating an ISO (or if selected direct burn to CD/DVD). The create screen is shown below in figure I.
Figure I
Create Output
On the bootable ISO screen, select the mode for creation you wish to use. The available modes are as follows:
- Direct Burn - write the modified files to CD/DVD
- Burn Image - write a previously created ISO image to CD/DVD
- Create Image - produce an ISO image of the modified files
- Erase RW - erase re-writable media
Most of the time, the best output to select here would be create image. This way you can create ISO files and save them to a location on your pC or network and store them for later use. Once the ISO is created, start nLite again, choosing only the Create option on the tasks screen and choose burn image as the mode.
To create an image, you will need to select the ISO engine to use. Here I have found that the default works quite well. Then click the Make ISO button to create the image.
When the burn image mode is chosen, you will be promped to browse for the ISO file you created previously then the button next to Click here to start -> will be labeled to facilitate burning an image to disc.
Once the progress bar for your selected task has completed ckick next and then finish to close the nLite wizard.
As you can see the free download makes the creation of slipstreamed media very painless and quite easy to handle. Hopefully nLite is a tool that will find its way into your computing toolbox.
