Install Windows, Drivers & Fixes in No Time

Installing Windows Server OS from scratch on a new server class machine,

which has a RAID card, needs RAID card drivers to be loaded when you start the

installation process. These drivers need to be provided from the floppy drive.

As not many new server class machines come with floppy drive these days, you

need to put an additional floppy drive on that machine in order to load these

drivers. To avoid such problems, you can slipstream required hardware drivers

such as RAID drives, motherboard drivers, etc directly into your Windows

installer. Slipstreaming is the process of integrating enhancements and/or bug

fixes in a software without the need to create a new version.

While there are many tools available that let you slipstream the drivers into

your Windows installer, we tell you how to do it through nLite that can

slipstream drivers, service pack etc to your Windows installer, plus it also

allows you to create unattended installer. Let's see step by step how you can

slipstream drivers into your Windows installer CD or DVD. Download nlite's

beta edition from www.nliteos.com/download.html

and install it on a Windows platform.

Step 1: Locate Windows installation files



Launch this tool from Start>Programs>nlite. This starts off a wizard for
creating slipstream CD or DVD of the windows installer. Here click on Next and

on the subsequent screen you would be asked for location of your original

Windows installer. nlite, then, automatically detects the product name, service

pack, version, size etc for the old installer. Now click on Next to proceed

further.

nLite wizard will ask you for the location of your source installer files, and automatically determine product name, size, etc

Step 2: Change installation presets



On the next screen you would be asked to change the preset that loads on
start-up, leave this as it is and click next to move further. Note that the Task

selection screen is divided into four parts-Integrate, Remove, Startup and

Create bootable ISO. In Integrate section, you can add service pack, hot fixes

and new hardware drivers. 

The Remove section lets you remove Windows components that you don't

require in the installation. Coming to setup section, you can choose unattended

setup tweaking the OS etc. Finally bootable ISO option will create an entire

bootable ISO image for you. Selecting any on the options will turn the selected

option button into green.

In our case, we had to slipstream the RAID and motherboard drivers, so we

selected only Drivers and Bootable ISO options and then click on Next. Here you

will get a driver selection screen, where you need to add the drivers that you

want to integrate into the installer. Click on Insert and add the drivers that

you want to integrate into the OS, thus, saving time and hassles of doing it

separately.

Further, you can tweak the OS by removing components (like games) that you

would rather leave out of the installation, set up answers for an unattended

install, and other tweaks and customizations as per organization's policies.

Select the options in the integrate section, for eg. if you want to add drivers to the installer select them and it will turn green

Step 3: Make ISO image



Click on Next to start arranging the files in order and make ISO image of a new
CD/DVD, with integrated drivers you have inserted above. This process takes

about 10 to 15 mins. Further, you also get to know about the total size of the

installer.

Select the options in to integrate section, for example if you want to add drivers to the installer select the drivers and it will turn green

Step 4: Burn and run



Now if you go further by clicking on Next, on Bootable ISO screen you can make
the ISO of the Windows installer with integrated drivers. By default, it is set

for creating an ISO image, but if you want to burn the installer directly, go to

the mode and click on the Create Image>Direct burn>Burn. If you just want

to create an ISO, select Create Image>Make ISO. This will ask you for the

location where you want to save the ISO image. You can then burn the ISO on a

CD/DVD.

In order to add new drivers, select the drivers that you want to integrate in to the new installer CD

Now that your installer with integrated drivers is ready, you can install

Windows OS and configure it in one go. Plus, you can even include the latest hot

fixes and service packs in to this installer, which saves time and effort when

you want to host new server OS on a new server machine.

This software is not only meant for Windows Server OS, but you can also allow

the same to slipstream Windows XP with the hardware drivers. Then, an

administrator can to deploy an OS on individual machine remotely using RIS

(Remote Installation Server).