Datasheet

CHAPTER 1 GETTING AND INSTALLING SP1

Here’s another command-line example. To tell sp1.exe to install SP1 with the defaults (back up

RTM files) and to automatically restart the system, but not to offer any kind of feedback about the

progress of the installation and not to reboot if any applications reported unsaved files, you’d type

sp1 /quiet /forcerestart

Telling the SP1 Installer Not to Backup RTM Files

As I mentioned before, I tend to skip backing up the RTM files, as it saves disk space and speeds up

the install process. You can tell sp1.exe to skip backups with the /n option.

WARNING I said that I don’t do RTM backups, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good

idea for you. Let me reiterate this: if you forgo backups then there’s no way to return your server

to its pre-SP1 state without a complete wipe and reinstall.

Skipping backups also means that you’ll save just under 400MB worth of space on the operating

system’s partition, which might be important to those working on a system with a small amount of

space on that OS partition drive. (Here I’m again referring to the folks who I run into now and then

who’ve unadvisedly installed Server 2003 on a 4 GB C: drive.) And as long as I’m discussing saving

space on a fairly full C: drive, what about the unpacking process? When sp1.exe unpacks its 413MB

of files, where does that go? Well, I guessed that if I ran sp1.exe from the C: drive then sp1.exe

would automatically put the unpacked files into a folder on the C: drive—but I was wrong. A bit of

experimentation with sp1.exe shows that it apparently tries to unpack itself onto a drive that is not

the one holding the operating system—a nice touch on Microsoft’s part.

So, for example, to install SP1 so that it does not back up the RTM files (/n), doesn’t ask any ques-

tions but does show us progress (/passive), and reboots the system automatically when SP1’s

installed (/forcerestart) but holds off on the reboot if there are applications with open files (leave

off the /f), you could open up a command prompt and type

sp1 /n /passive /forcerestart

As you can imagine, this is a nice “type this, press Enter, and walk away” method of installing

SP1. But, again, SP1 might still not install automatically, as it might want to prompt you if it can

overwrite OEM files, or it might stop because of an application that refuses to close itself. The truly

“damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!” command would be

sp1 /n /passive /forcerestart /o /f

Saving Space But Still Doing Backups

But suppose you like the idea of backups but are short of space on your OS’s drive? That’s a

toughie. It’s quite improbable that you’ll need those backups, but it’s a complete certainty that the

backup will suck up 400MB of disk space on your OS’s drive. What to do? Use the /d: option.

Normally, the SP1 installer creates the backup in the Windows directory of your operating

system, in a folder called $ntservicepackuninstall$. But if you add the option “/d:path” to

an sp1.exe invocation, then the SP1 installer will instead do the backup to path. For example, if

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