SlipStreaming

It took me a while to find the time for that, so sorry for the delay… This post is about how to have one installation run of SQL Server install not only the product itself, but also a Service Pack and a Cumulative Update package. Given the fact that every installation takes a reboot this method can save lots of time, not to mention lots of work. As always there are very good knowledge base articles about that and this post is not supposed to make them obsolete. I will reduce the post to just the plain basics. And give you a walkthrough on how to do it in a few minutes:

1. You need is a plain installation media. (I usually copy the files from a DVD to a harddrive folder to start that.)
2. You need to unpack the service pack. For that I create myself a “PCU” folder in the same directory as the installation media. Then I run the unpack like this: “SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB258583-x64-ENU.exe /x:<BaseDirectory>\PCU /Quiet”
3. Same goes for the cumulative update. I normally use the CU folder. The commandline is the same, just of course with the other exe…
4. Of course you can do this again with –x86 as well as –ia64 versions, having them extract into the same directory if you need the slipstream to run on all platforms.
5. Now you need to update two files in the the base image: Setup.exe and Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll. You should always use the latest version there, so normally the one from the CU. Be advised that the Chainer DLL is in the x64 directory (as well as in the x86 and ia64, so if you slipstream multiple processor architectures you have to replace all of the chainer DLLs.)
6. Last thing: Update DefaultSetup.ini in the x64 directory (and x86, ia64 as before) to include the updates. The line looks like that: PCUSource=”C:\Install\SQL2008R2\PCU”. (That’s the line for the service pack. For the cumulative update it’s called CUSource.) Notice that I used full qualified path names. You can of course use relative paths as well, but I had some difficulties with those in the past, so I changed it.

That’s it… So how do you get Setup now to use the slipstream? Well, just click on Setup.exe… Everything else will just work…

And now for the lazy ones around: Here is the script I use for slipstreaming: (Notice that %1 is the target directory where the plain SQL Server copy is.)

ECHO Unpacking Service Pack...
ECHO   x86...
SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x86-ENU.exe /x:%1\PCU /quiet
ECHO   x64...
SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x64-ENU.exe /x:%1\PCU /quiet
ECHO   IA64...
SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-IA64-ENU.exe /x:%1\PCU /quiet

ECHO SlipStreaming Service Pack...

robocopy %1\PCU %1 Setup.exe >NUL 2>NUL
robocopy %1\PCU %1 Setup.rll >NUL 2>NUL

ECHO   x86...
robocopy %1\pcu\x86 %1\x86 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL
ECHO   x64...
robocopy %1\pcu\x64 %1\x64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL
ECHO   IA64...
robocopy %1\ia64 %1\ia64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL

REM Currently no CU for R2 SP1
GOTO EndCU

ECHO Unpacking Cumulative Update...
ECHO   x86...
SQLServer2008R2-KB2534352-x86 /x:%1\CU /quiet
ECHO   x64...
SQLServer2008R2-KB2534352-x64 /x:%1\CU /quiet
ECHO   IA64...
SQLServer2008R2-KB2534352-IA64 /x:%1\CU /quiet

ECHO SlipStreaming Cumulative Update...

robocopy %1\CU %1 Setup.exe >NUL 2>NUL
robocopy %1\CU %1 Setup.rll >NUL 2>NUL

ECHO   x86...
robocopy %1\CU\x86 %1\x86 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL
ECHO   x64...
robocopy %1\CU\x64 %1\x64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL
ECHO   IA64...
robocopy %1\CU\ia64 %1\ia64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll >NUL 2>NUL

:EndCU

ECHO Updating DefaultSetup.ini...
robocopy . %1\x86 defaultsetup.ini >NUL 2>NUL
robocopy . %1\x64 defaultsetup.ini >NUL 2>NUL
robocopy . %1\ia64 defaultsetup.ini >NUL 2>NUL

And that’s it. Just to be complete, here is the complete DefaultSetup.ini I am using:

;SQLSERVER2008 Configuration File
[SQLSERVER2008]
PID="<add your product key here>"
PCUSOURCE="C:\Install\SQL2008R2\PCU"
;CUSOURCE="C:\Install\SQL2008R2\CU"
SQLCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
ASCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

Please note that CUSource is commented out as there is no CU for SQL 2008R2 SP1 right now.