Creating a bootable Win2k CD after installing all Windows updates

[Guest]

I'm trying to create a Windows 2000 installation CD with all service packs
and critical updates already installed. I've copied the contents of a
bootable Win2k CD to my local hard drive and applied service pack 4 to the
copied contents successfully. But when I burn the win2000 back to a CD the
CD is not bootable. It's file structure and all appear the same as the
bootable Win2k I used as the source, but it will not boot from the CD.

I need to make a bootable Windows 2000 installation CD with all service
packs and critical updates already in place (also, I'll need to do this for
Windows XP, too!) How do I do this? Thanks a million!

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

Take a look at http://www.willowhayes.co.uk/windows2000/ for Windows 2000
and http://bink.nu/xpbootcd/ for Windows XP.

Integrating the hotfixes is more tricky. Here's an article that describes
how to do it.

How to integrate software updates into your Windows installation source
files
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828930

If your hotfix replaces a file in driver.cab (or a corresponding SP version
of the file) then here's the article to use.

How to Slipstream Hotfixes That Replace Pre-Existing Driver Files
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814847

Long term, you'll be updating the CD very frequently. While doing this is
useful to ensure that your newly-deployed machines are safe from attack
while being built, don't use this in place of a good patch-management
strategy. You still need a way of ensuring that existing machines are
patched.

My recommendation would be to add only the patches for vulnerabilities that
could lead to an over-the-wire exploit (e.g. Sasser, Blaster, etc) and use
another patch management strategy for the remaining hotfixes. This will
reduce the amount of modifications required to your custom installation CDs
while also ensuring that your already-deployed machines are up to date as
well.

If you're not already using patch management technologies, give Software
Update Services (SUS) a try. SUS is to be replaced by WUS (which went into
public beta recently, if I'm not mistaken), but this should not deter you
from deploying SUS is you think it's the right thing to do.

Hope this helps

Oli