Slipstreaming SharePoint 2010--The "Easy" Way

If you look at any number of articles on SharePoint slipstreaming (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ronalg/archive/2011/07/11/slipstream-sharepoint-2010-sp1-and-language-packs-w-sp1-into-rtm.aspx), you will probably notice that they require you to have all of the contents extracted onto your hard drive first, and after doing so, you will then have to burn the resulting media back to DVD media or compile into an ISO image.

Well, that is a bit of a tedious process and usually a waste of disk space as well.  Since the actual slipstreaming process associated with both Office and SharePoint really only involves placing the patches and updates into an Updates folder, it does not make a whole lot of sense to put everything onto the hard disk and then re-creating the media.

Therefore, I usually just follow these steps instead:

1. Download and install an ISO media editing tool such as UltraISO:  http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/history.htm.  There are numerous ISO editing tools available for download, but I have personally had the best experience and results with UltraISO. NOTE: The trial version of UltraISO only supports a 500 MB ISO image, therefore, if you like it, it is most definitely a worthwhile purchase.
2. Download the appropriate SharePoint 2010 media in the form of an ISO image from MSDN.
3. Now, extract any updates or language packs that you need to integrate into the SharePoint media.
4. You can then open the SharePoint 2010 ISO image using UltraISO.
5. Once the ISO image has been opened, you can then either drag and drop the content from Windows Explorer view directly into the appropriate Updates folders.  Otherwise, you can either use the Add Files option from the Actions menu to add the appropriate content.
6. After the files have been successfully added to the media, and click on the Save icon.  This should recompile and save your resultant integrated ISO media.
7. Voila! You now have an integrated SharePoint ISO image that you can use for mounting using ISO Image mounting software, mount to virtual machines or burn to DVD media!!