.NET 3.5 Framework
I personally have already done the plain vanilla “creating a bootdisk” thing a zillion times already — there are plenty of references for how to make a plain-Jane bootdisk on the web, so I’ll save my breath on that until the end. Instead, I’m going to first focus on getting the essentials (and maybe a few pieces of comfort software :) in place on a fresh install.
XP SP3, like other versions of XP before it, does not include the .NET Framework. Since this is a critical dependency for a lot of software (like nLite!), I figure that it’s probably a good idea to get it on a freshly-installed system as soon as possible. Fortunately, this particular tidbit is easy to install — just grab the .NET 3.5 Framework Full Redistributable Package (~200MiB) and issue a tidy little one-liner:
start /wait dotnetfx35.exe /q
Voila. As far as I can tell, there is no option to install this package in a specific location — which I’ll accept without too much resistance for this particular component (especially since the full UI installation doesn’t present an option of installation locations).
Don’t worry; not all of the installations will be as boring as this one. This just happens to be a somewhat major prerequisite, so it’s been listed first. I’ll be back Wednesday, showing you how to install another piece of critical bootstrapping software. :)
