A general SP question

[Charles J. van Doornewaard]

I need to do a clean install on my PC using Windows XP.

Now if there are several SP''s available, like SP1, SP2 and SP3, do I need
to install each SP separately or does the last SP (3 in this example) also
contain all the previous XP packages and hence installing SP2 only updates
XP to the present day?

Best regards,
Charles.

 

[Charles J. van Doornewaard]

I meant SP3 only in stead of SP2 only
=============================================

 

[Daave]

Although service packs are generally exclusive, SP3 is a bit tricky.

You never said what SP level (if any) your installation CD* is at. If it
is "gold" (i.e., no SP level), then you must upgrade to SP1 or SP2
before upgrading to SP3. If it is SP1 or SP1a (or SP2, of course), then
you may upgrade directly to SP3.

Note that even after installing SP3, you will have an additional 75 or
so security patches to install!

* I am aware that there are other methods to use than an XP installation
CD; that was shorthand. If you have a recovery CD or partition, the
principle is still the same.

 

[VanguardLH]

I need to do a clean install on my PC using Windows XP.

Now if there are several SP''s available, like SP1, SP2 and SP3, do I need
to install each SP separately or does the last SP (3 in this example) also
contain all the previous XP packages and hence installing SP2 only updates
XP to the present day?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_pack
"Windows XP SP3 requires at least SP1 to be present on an installed copy
of Windows XP, although slipstreaming SP3 into the gold release is still
supported."

Install Windows XP (gold) + SP1 + SP3
or
Slipstream Windows XP (gold) + SP3 onto another CD

For slipstreaming, nlite makes it easy:
http://www.nliteos.com/