To start your slipstream of Windows XP with SP2 you have to be able to access the DOS command line. Don’t be afraid of the command line; just remember that the command line is a “geek’s” friend.

To access the command line from Windows XP simply click on the “Start” button. Click on “Run” and when the Dialogue box pops open, type “cmd” without the quotes and then “OK”.

Welcome to the command line. It is a simple yet extremely powerful way
of controlling many aspects of your computer system. Back to business,
to start the process of slipstreaming SP2 into your windows
installation CD you must first get to the root of the drive, or C:\.
You can do this by simply entering the command “cd \” without the
quotes. For all future purposes, after typing the command, to actually
make it happen, you have to hit the “Enter” key.

We are going to issue a few commands now. Like I said, they are simple
commands, so don’t be afraid. First, we are going to create a directory
to work from. To do this, issue the command: “mkdir ” where would be the name of the directory you want to work from. Let’s use the directory name “XP-old” for our purposes here.

Now, we are going to copy all of the files from our Windows XP
Professional CD into the directory we just created. Insert the CD into
the CD-ROM drive. To copy the files from the CD to the directory issue
the command “xcopy d:\ c:\XP-old /e”. In my case, this will be “E:”,
but under normal circumstances the drive letter assigned will be “D:”