I know many of you are going to have problems with this so I thought I would do a quick write up and provide some helpful tools to make this task easier. Deploying Service Pack 3 is not like most deployments since it affects the operating system so much. In fact, at some point it disconnects WMI (which is the connection method for RSI) and can cause the application to hang. The solution is pretty simple though. Deploy SP3 but don't wait for the installation to complete. I have created a small Windows XP SP3 Launcher Wise Script that kicks off the SP3 install (you have to download that yourself) silently and forces a reboot at the end of the install. To change this you can dowload the script yourself and edit in Wise. For you first time Wiser's it's a good way to get started with a great tool.
Here are the steps for creating a SP3 Installation package using the Quick Install Maker (A free tool we offer):
- Download the Quick Install Maker http://www.installsolutions.net/FreewareOverview.aspx
- Download the XP SP3 Network Installation http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5b33b5a8-5e76-401f-be08-1e1555d4f3d4&displaylang=en
- Download the Windows XP SP3 Launcher http://www.InstallSolutions.net/Community/files/folders/wisescripts/entry38.aspx
- Put the XP SP3 install and the SP3Launcher.exe in a folder together like this:
- Install and Launch the Quick Install Maker application and make your settings look like this:
- Deploy the resulting installation exe (SP3Installation.exe in this example) using the Remote Software Installation Utility and an admin account
Here is what happens behind the scenes. The SP3Installation.exe you created is actually a self-extracting zip file. Once it unzips the files, which will take a while, it will kick off SP3Launcher.exe which kicks off the main SP3 Install. As soon as it does the SP3Launcher.exe will exit and return a successful value while leaving the SP3 install to run and reboot eventually.
The SP3 Install takes quite a while, over an hour in some instances. So be patient. Please let me know if you have any questions.
- Good luck!