A. There are various options, however all of them require for the service pack to be extracted to a directory, using

NT4SP3_I /x

and you then enter the directory where you want to extract to.

You could extract to a directory under the $OEM$ installation directory which would then be copied locally during the installation and you could add the line


to CMDLINES.TXT. This will increase the time of the text portion of the installation as the contents have to be copied over the network.

With Service Pack 4 you could just add and not need to expand the service pack first.


Simply create a folder called sp4 under $OEM$ and copy sp4i386.exe to it.

If using the above you should ensure you have the following in unattended.txt


An alternate method is to install from a network drive, this requires a bit more work:

  1. Create a directory on a network server and copy the extracted service pack to this directory. Setup a share on this directory called SP
  2. Create a batch file in the $OEM$ share of the installation area called SERVPACK.CMD with the following:
    net use z:\\<server>\SP /persistent:no /user:<domain name> \guest < password.txt
    z:\update.exe -u -z
  3. You need to create the password.txt file that contains the guest account password (usually blank) therefore perform the following:
    - type copy con password.txt
    - press ENTER once
    - press CTRL+Z to save the file
    If the password is not blank enter the password then press ENTER
  4. Copy the password.txt file to the $OEM$ directory
  5. Edit CMDLINES.TXT and add ".\SERVPACK.CMD" to the end