How do I avoid re-installing all the Windows updates each time I reinstall Windows?

Naturally the image of Windows XP you have on your installation CD is a
snapshot of Windows XP frozen in time. Most CDs have SP2 pre-loaded, but I know
I have a couple that are the original release. The installation process using
those is even worse, since it must first download and install SP2 before I can
even get to the more recent updates.

There are several approaches to avoiding this problem if you reinstall
repeatedly.

Windows XP SP3

The first solution, of course, is Windows XP SP3. At this writing, it is
supposed to be released almost any day now. That will bundle most of those
security updates and more into a single download and install.

It’s unclear though if we’ll ever see Windows XP CDs with SP3 pre-installed,
simply because Microsoft keeps threatening to stop selling XP.

If you do plan to reinstall periodically, or on multiple machines, I would
recommend finding and downloading what’s called the “network install”. This is
a single large file containing all of the service packs that you download
once and then use on as many machines as you need, and as often as you
need.

SP3 isn’t a permanent solution, since no doubt there will be additional
patches and fixes post-SP3 that will begin to accumulate just as they have
post-SP2.

Slipstreaming

Slipstreaming is the process of creating a Windows XP Installation CD with a
service pack pre-loaded. Typically you’ll see instructions pop up on the
internet after a major service pack is released, so after SP3 is released I
fully expect that to be the case. It takes a bit of work, an original XP
Installation CD and the network install version of the service pack, but the
result is a single CD that just has everything up to date as of that service
pack.

If you find yourself installing Windows XP a lot on different machines,
creating a slipstreamed disk might well be worth the effort. Just remember that
each machine you install on will, of course, need their own unique Windows XP
product key to be legal.

Snapshotting

If you find yourself reinstalling to the same machine periodically, it might
be wise to simply use a disk imaging tool to take a snapshot of the machine
after you’ve updated it completely. Even if you don’t plan to do it frequently,
it can often be a helpful safety net.

For example you might install Windows XP with SP2, and then go through the
pain of installing all the updates available from Windows Update. Once you’re
done, create an image of the system drive.

Now, later, when it’s time to reinstall, instead of actually going through
the reinstallation process you simply restore the drive image. That brings the
machine to the same state it was in when you took the image: installed and up
to date as of that time.

Be sure to then visit Windows Update anyway, since there may well be
additional updates that were released after you took that snapshot. If you
foresee repeating this process in the future, it might even be worth taking an
updated snapshot at this point as well, before you further modify the
system.

The “problem” with snapshotting is that it typically only works reliably on
the same machine that the snapshot was taken from. Remember that Windows
configures itself for the hardware that it’s installed on. Once you take a
snapshot of that configuration to another machine with different hardware, the
results are unpredictable. Similarly, if Windows has been activated at the time
the snapshot was taken, the activation will likely not apply to the changed
hardware.

Windows Update Alternatives

One alternative that I’ve not played with personally are services
that provide all the Windows updates bundled into a single install. Discussed
on the Security Now! podcast, episode
124 with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte (the “other Leo” ), this
script for “offline-update” apparently builds a CD image with all the current
patches ready for installation.