Is it possible to update hidden OS with sp3?

[radiator]

Is it possible to equip my hiddent partition where my windows sp1 is with sp3 and all the necessary updates?

[Harryc]

I beleive what you are talking about is slipstreaming XP SP3 onto the Rescue & Recovery Discs and then installing that onto the service partition on your drive. I don't think it is possible, and I don't think it has ever been done. You'd be better doing a drive (or partition) image of an existing clean XP/SP3 installation and reinstalling it when you need it.

[Johan]

I beleive what you are talking about is slipstreaming XP SP3 onto the Rescue & Recovery Discs and then installing that onto the service partition on your drive. I don't think it is possible, and I don't think it has ever been done. You'd be better doing a drive (or partition) image of an existing clean XP/SP3 installation and reinstalling it when you need it.

Well, actually, Harry, I think that this is possibly, although I never recall having read (here on the forum) of anybody actually doing it. In any case, have a look in the Lenovo Blog: “Junk” in the Preload which points to ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator. Seems to be quite advanced stuff, but - on the other hand - we are the high-performance ThinkPad'ers gathering here, so if not possible here, then where?!

A quote from the first link:

After spending all of this time removing software, I thoroughly defragment, update Windows, update device drivers, remove any excess temporary files, and install my apps like Notes and Office. At that point, I generally make a Rescue and Recovery backup of the entire system so that if I do have to go back to “bare metal,” I won’t have to go through all of that pain again. It’s pretty darn time consuming, but I’ve convinced myself that I have a better running system because of it.

Now there is an easier way. My friend and colleague, Dan Paquette turned me on to this neat little utility we just started making available on our systems. It is called ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator. It is designed for people in small business and those just like me who want to customize their preloads. Find it at this link in the downloads section.

This wonderful little tool allows you to see our preload recovery area for both our desktops and our notebooks. You can then choose which programs, patches, and utilities you want to have installed, and which ones you don’t. The typical scenario would be to boot up your system for the first time, create a “manifest file” using this tool, and immediately thereafter do a factory recovery. However, when the system recovers, it recovers to YOUR specifications. The major advantages to doing it this way is you spend much less time as the recovery is automated, and since these programs are never installed, you don’t have any residual Registry junk from incomplete uninstalls.

... and a brief quite from the second link:

The ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator (BSA) program is a versatile software utility that you can use to customize the recovery process for the Lenovo Preload. With BSA, you can customize the recovery process for computers and you can create personalization files used to automate the setup for Windows based on the Lenovo Preload.

Please report back here if anybody plays with this - and get it to work! Advanced stuff...

Johan

[closersource]

The manifest utility lets you turn things on and off and run post-install process like perhaps apply a service pack but slipstreaming would involve making the hidden partition visible and running commands with Windows Installer directly on the hidden partition's I386 folder. Also, it probably is not within the EULA to modify the factory partition that way.

[radiator]

But how to make my partition visable?

[Nameless]

But how to make my partition visable?

Enter the bios setup by pressing the blue Access IBM button, choose F1 (?) to enter bios setup. Once in there, there should be an option somewhere entitled "Enable Predesktop Area" with the possible settings being Secure, Normal, Disabled. Choose Disabled and the hidden partition should now be visible.

btw this is for a T43/p but I assume most/all T4x's are similar.

[Johan]

...there should be an option somewhere entitled "Enable Predesktop Area" with the possible settings being Secure, Normal, Disabled.

As shown in the BIOS simulator - ThinkPad T42/p with fingerprint reader this option is under the "Security" field.

Johan