I almost felt like registering a new screen name just to ask this question b/c the answer is probably obvious but I honestly don't know what it is.    I just got my first burner and I want to burn a slipstreamed XP SP2 to CD.  If I right-click the slipstreamed folder and do a 'properties' it shows both its 'Size' and its 'Size on Disk' (which I guess is its compressed and uncompressed size because of the .cab files?)  Anyway, both of those sizes are too big for a CD, right?  One is just under 900 MB and ther other is just over 1 GB.

So how do you burn that much data to a CD?  I know it would fit on a DVD, but people burn them to CDs and I'd like to know how to do it.

Try not to make fun of me too much!

NightOwl, that's the same guide I used.  I followed it step by step (up until you get to the part where you burn the CD since I haven't done that yet) and everything worked exactly as he explains.

One thing I didn't mention before is that my XP Pro SP1a CD came with a Hewlett Packard PC, so maybe it has several extra hundreds of MBs in extras on it?  Here's a screenshot of what the CD contents look like in Windows Explorer.  On the left is SP1a (815 MB), and on the right is after I slipstreamed SP2 into it (899 MB).  I realize this is only the root view of the CD contents, but maybe someone could look at their slipstreamed CD and tell right away if I have some extra folders in mine.

I know that the directories don't match 100% between the left & right.... I deleted the Compaq, Docs, & Valueadd directories after I looked at their contents.

I don't have a burning program yet, but to answer your question about how much data I have, it's 815 MD for SP1a and 899 MB after SP2 was slipstreamed in.

I noticed you don't have the USWXP32P_ZX folder that I have in my CD contents.  I just checked it and it's got 6,267 files, 588 folders, and is 322 MB in size.  It's identical in both the slipstreamed and pre-slipstreamed CD contents.  That's probably the culprit right there, but what the heck is it?

Another alternative would be to use the DVD and make a

Windows Post Installation

which includes all of your most important software.

I use this method and have all of the hotfixes for Windows XP included, plus a post install javascipt (shortcut right on the desktop after install) enabling me to consecutively install 125 programs fully automated...  with no user intervention, simply by putting a check in the checkbox next to all the programs you want to install.

Put the WPI XP DVD in your drive, boot from it.  Come back in about an hour and you're looking at your desktop.  Click on the javascript shortcut (you could also use VB.NET or C# to facilitate the Post Install...  but you would need the .Net Framework 2.0 previously installed for this to be functional), put a check in the checkboxes of all the programs you want to install, click the install button and walk away.

All installation scripts with product keys and activations are configured beforehand with

AutoIt 3

the official one-hour software.  I learned it in a weekend so anyone can use it.

If you're going through the trouble anyway, why not make it awesome? (Should time permit).

Just a suggestion.