Integrating patches into Unattended Builds

One of the really nice features in Windows is the unattended build.
Rather than having to do an install and hit Next, Next, Next, Cancel (damn, wrong one!) you can pass the installation routine all of the settings it needs.

This is useful because you get reliable, consistent builds across hardware types. Sometimes you will need to add in the additional drivers needed but once thats done it's actually a really nice way of performing an install.

Another nice feature is the ability to slipstream service packs into the install media. This gives you the ability to deploy the software with the service pack pre-installed.
I always spin off a copy of the install when applying a service pack. This way I can roll back to a previous unattended installation if needed.

Recently, Micrsoft has added the ability to /integrate patches into the install. In theory you can install a new machine fully patched before it even hits the network.

In Theory.

In Practice someone at Microsoft needs to test this.

Recently I tried this on Windows 2003. The service pack slipstreamed and installed with no problems.

Integrating the patches also generated no errors but when running the installation you'll get the following error:



This DLL is used by MS05-039

So, Now we have a problem. Do we ignore the file? Well, you can't do that because you will still be unpatched so all you can do is NOT integrate that patch into the unattended files and this means when the machine starts up it will be missing patches.

Annoying and unnecessary.

Whatever happend to NTBUGTRAQ?

I've been on the NT Bugtraq mailing list for months and then one cold September night (it may not actually have BEEN cold but I digress...) the list seemed to disappear only to reappear months later with no posting, no announcement of security patches.

Its a shame because NTBUGTRAQ was one hell of a good site promoting the free flow of security information and teaching the uninitiated good security practises and now all that is left is a somewhat bleak site with no more postings.

I hope NTBUGTRAQ can be resurrected as without it the security arena is a more lonely and dangerous place.