new hard disc

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i am about to reformat my existing hard disc and wonder is ther any where i can down load all the windows and officeupdates to place on a cd prior to reformatting
I have windows XP
office 2003
and SP2 update
can any one help where / or how this can be achieved

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You can at least Slipstream your XP copy and SP2 on to one CD and be up to date as of the date of the SP2 update. You will still need to DL and install all of the hotfixes that came out after SP2 but it will help quite a bit.

AutoStreamer is very easy to use and all you need are the original XP CD and the SP2 update.

Download it at AUTOSTREAMER

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thank you for your help , i will try this before i reformat my hard disc

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Hi,
Well, not much to do with your subject “new hard disc”

As Bob mentioned, for Windows, a slipstreamed XP SP2 CD is good to have, both at your install time and later on when doing maintenance if needed. Using AutoStreamer is extremely simple.

I recently reinstalled Windows XP and had all the patches until September on CD. It helps if you for some reason want to delay going online, or want to have all updates to a specific date before going online or installing other software etc.

In my case, I had downloaded all the individual updates as they were released so I had them already.

In your case; either you use Microsoft Update (MU) or Windows Update (WU) and Office Update after you have installed Windows XP SP2 and download the updates you want. Or turn on Automatic Updates.

Or now, before you go ahead and format your drive, you check what updates you have installed and go download them. A simple way is by the individual bulletins that correspond to the update.

Here you can search all the bulletins for updates: Microsoft Security Bulletin Search and then if you like via the individual bulletins download the different updates. Where you want to stop is up to you, i.e. if you want to wait with latest October updates.

As you may know, sometimes older updates are replaced by later ones; in the case of the cumulative ones (IE / OE) that is obvious, one only need the latest.

My earlier Windows installation had started at the SP2 level and some of the later installed updates were replaced by even newer ones. This is no problem and the update process handle that OK. But to avoid installing replaced updates (and in my case save data from other partitions due to a hardware crash) I did a test installation of Windows XP SP2. With only a few updates installed; IE cumulative, Windows Installer 3.1, Windows Package Installer (the latter needed by AU/MU/WU), I let Automatic Updates notify me what updates was needed.

So, in my case XP SP2 Home, and before the 3-4 September updates, I found that I needed 43 updates for Windows etc., 3 updates for IE/OE, plus some for Windows Media Player and Flash (there are always some other “stability” updates, the odd KB900485 etc.).

The exact numbers are irrelevant here, but with that list of updates plus the mentioned Windows Installer and Package installer, with a simple check I found when compared that I had on CD 13 updates (post SP2) that was not needed and had been replaced.

For instance the MS06-007 (913446) Vulnerability in TCP/IP, from the MS February bulletin was replaced by the MS06-032 (917953) in the MS June bulletin.

It is easy to download the individual updates via the bulletins, but be careful so you pick the correct version.

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autostreamer seems to work (and is easy to use) except at the last part wher the two disc are combined. after waiting for an hour for this to happen, the last screen only showed “EXIT” not finished and nothing to show for it. what could i have done wrong????????
as i have both of these disc (windowsXP and SP2) i anm going to take your advise and trawl microsoft site for all the relevant bulletins.
If i am able to get them on to a disc i will post the results( bound to be greater than 100k). where would you suggest i post it??
thanks to all for your help.

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Hi,
I don’t know if you have to post anything (i.e. result). What do you have in mind? If you have a list of the updates you need and want, then you can find them at MS as mentioned. I don’t think anyone has many comments to give on older updates if you post a list of updates, and since you probably already have them installed you should know if any of them has problems. As always, for longer lists I would add them in a text file, to get under 100k you can use a zip-program. But then again, I don’t know what you want to post.

As for AutoStreamer, to be honest it is some time since I used it. Though I don’t think there has been any newer version, I used v. 1.0.33 with the ability to pause before finished ISO to add files. The process took some minutes I think. I can’t say what went wrong for you, but it is easy to try again.

Take a look here for version 1.0.33 (and a bunch of comments on earlier versions):
AutoStreamer 1.0.33 – Neowin Forums

On the page there is a link to a step-by-step guide with screenshots:
Simplyguides | How to use AutoStreamer to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 2

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