Microsoft DVD images

[dZeus]

-- Warning: Rant ahead --
I'm wondering why Microsoft only allows MSDN subscribers to download images of e.g. their OS with integrated service packs.

With Windows XP it was very easy to slipstream service packs into your original disk image, but with Windows Vista and up the procedure is very convoluted.

This forces legitimate owners of their software with pre-service pack DVDs to download images from 'alternative sources' (i.e. torrents, shady websites) and makes them much more vulnerable to people tinkering with the image they download. More technically able people will of course be able to prevent this by comparing the checksum of the downloaded disk images with original MSDN images as posted on the web.

[UtwigMU]

Luckilly the place where I worked 2 years ago hasn't changed their MSDN password yet.

Another annoyance is that MS demo machines in VHDs come archived with RAR. Are you supposed to install cracked winrar on server OS hypervisor? (7zip can unrar and is free but still they should provide files in archive that is natively supported by the OS).

[Jammrock]

That is kind of annoying. There are tools that will do the slipstreaming for you, with relative ease, but the thought is most people who want/need to slipstream have MSDN, TechNet, VL or Premier access to download a prebuilt OS + SP.

The VHD's I've downloaded have all been self extracting RAR archives that don't need a third party tool. Maybe that's changed...?