No, You Can't Build Your Own Slipstreamed Installation of Windows Vista SP1

With Microsoft having released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to manufacturing, on February 4, 2008, and started to make the service pack available for download to technical customers, from the participants in the SP1 Beta testing process, to Volume License users and to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, questions began emerging related to the possibility of integrating SP1 into an existing image of Vista. In this context, Microsoft has answered a firm NO to slipstreaming Windows Vista SP1 into an existing Vista install image.

"When you do the SP1 installation, even if it's from Windows Update (when available), you're going to see your machine shutdown and restart on it's own several times. That's to be expected. See, there's this important part of the OS known as the 'servicing layer' in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. This is the part of the OS that allows for easy update installation with minimal disruptions, allows for an update to be applied to an offline captured image that's within a .wim file, among other things," explained Kevin Remde, Microsoft IT Pro Evangelist.

Essentially, what the users will have to do is install the service pack and then recapture the image. In the eventuality that the original Vista installation is not activated, Vista SP1 will add an extra re-arm period to the result, to compensate for any testing time that could be lost. The actual details of how to create a new Vista SP1 image are available via the WAIK documentation.

"If you're using the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit), you will definitely want to get the new version that has support for both the original Vista as well as the new servicing layer that's in both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Of course, the easiest way to do this all would be to get a copy pre-slipstreamed SP1 version of Windows Vista from Microsoft when it becomes available, and start with that as your new installation base. If you're not doing any other custom image management, that's definitely the easiest solution. Just add it to your own Microsoft Deployment workbench or use it to build your new images from there," Remde added.