Geeks Corner:
Slipstreaming Windows
When you install Windows XP, or Windows Vista you have to tell the OS if you have an unusual hard drive setup or Windows will not recognize the hard drives and the installation will fail. To do this you typically hit F6 when the OS first starts the install and eventually it will come back and ask for a driver disk, a floppy disk.
You see there is the issue, many computers don’t have floppy drives any more, and almost no notebooks do. Now Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has not made any other options available, in other words if you don’t have a floppy drive, you don’t install Windows.
Since many computer manufacturers don’t provide restore disks anymore, it is often necessary for the consumer to make restore disks after the purchase of a new computer. Most consumers don’t bother, even if the computer came with restore disks, most often the consumer losses them. So when a hard drive fails, installing Windows on a new hard drive, without a manufactures disk, without a floppy drive and with a newer more advanced SATA controller on board becomes a challenge.
Microsoft allows for us to write an unattended install routine that will let us insert the drivers into the install CD in a process called Slipstreaming. It is just a complicated script that most of us don't care to get into. Of course Microsoft provides instructions but if you've ever read Microsoft's instructions you know they are designed to protect them from legal issues, not to help you get anything done.
Enter the free software movement. It is amazing just how much work these guys do and then make available for free.
In this case, the software is nLite for Windows XP, and vLite for Windows Vista. vLite is still in beta, but nLite is fully functional and allows your to basically write a new restore disk from scratch if you just have the proper drivers. The purpose of nLite is to allow you to do an unattended install of Windows with all the drivers in place, and of course that included the notorious F6 driver I was whining about earlier.
nLite has a simple GUI interface that any qualified tech can follow, and while the documentation is limited, the website has faqs and forums to answer almost any question.
While it would of course be better for consumers to make their restore disks, or to keep track of them if they have them, the freeware community has their back.
