Vista Update Integration

Jody Thornton

Power User
From the Windows 8 Forum, I asked "What is Vista Unofficial SP3?"

Essentially, [Vista Unofficial SP3] is the sp2 installation media with updates since then pre integrated.

You can include your favorite reg tweaks,e.g. context menu entries, turn off uac, etc.

I also added recovery option - putting boot.wim into a folder on the os partition, which responds to the F8 key, similar to how it is done in 7 and up. You can include usb3 drivers and anything else you want in boot.wim as well e.g your imaging program perhaps Aomei backupper or macrium, and a partition manager, possibly an a/v scanner too. )

Works well, though the install.wim is bigger of course. Very useful for repair installs as well as clean installs.

Couple of ways to do it. One is to install vista onto fresh partition, skip product key, hit ctrl+shift+f3 and it will reboot into audit mode. D/l and install updates, rebooting a couple of times to make sure they have all gone in, then tick "generalise" in the syprep box and reboot into a different os. From the other os you can capture the syprepped vista partition as install.wim.

Another way is to copy the vista install media to a drive ( just copy and paste is fine). Then use something like this to install the updates into install.wim.

So I could envision the contents of install.wim to be the installed image of Vista on an HDD, couldn't I? In fact, if I wanted to install Vista, a couple applications and some updates, I could create a WIM image of that installation, and then reinstall that same thing down the road automatically, as if it were a fresh installation?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP xw8600 Workstation
    CPU
    Two Intel Xeon Core2 Quad 3.2 GHz Processors
    Motherboard
    Proprietary
    Memory
    16 GB DDR2 800 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia Quadro FX 3800 PCI-E
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21" 4x3 Flat Screen
    Screen Resolution
    1600x1200
    Hard Drives
    Two Seagate Cheetah 300 GB SAS Disks
    PSU
    Proprietary
    Case
    HP xw8600 Workstation Case
    Cooling
    Two CPU Fans and One Larger Cooling Fan
    Keyboard
    PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Microsoft USB Optical Mouse
    Internet Speed
    7 mbps
    Other Info
    Storage Interface: Two LSI 3000 SAS Adapters
    Browser: Firefox ESR 102

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavilion m9515y
    CPU
    Phenom X4 9850
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Some Radeon Cheapie with 512 MB Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    CRT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    750 GB SATA 3G
    2 SIIG Superspeed docks w/WD Caviar Black Sata II or III
So I could envision the contents of install.wim to be the installed image of Vista on an HDD, couldn't I? In fact, if I wanted to install Vista, a couple applications and some updates, I could create a WIM image of that installation, and then reinstall that same thing down the road automatically, as if it were a fresh installation?

Yes, exactly like this:

install vista onto fresh partition, skip product key, hit ctrl+shift+f3 and it will reboot into audit mode. D/l and install updates, rebooting a couple of times to make sure they have all gone in, then tick "generalise" in the syprep box and reboot into a different os. From the other os you can capture the syprepped vista partition as install.wim.

Easy way to capture the vista partition as Install.wim is with free program Gimagex, works fine for Vista and newer. If you running Gimagex from within win7 you don't need anything else as win7 already has wimgapi.

If your os does not already include wimgapi, you can d/l it easily, you don't need the whole waik thing.

https://www.autoitconsulting.com/site/image-engineering/gimagex-v2-1-0-released-windows-8-1/
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Vista
    CPU
    Intel E8400
    Motherboard
    ASRock1333-GLAN R2.0
    Memory
    4gb DDR2 800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nvidia 9500GT 1gb
  • Operating System
    win7/vista
    CPU
    intel i5-8400
    Motherboard
    gigabyte b365m ds3h
    Memory
    ballistix 2x8gb 3200
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