One of the best free programs and one of my favorites is Nlite.

It makes slipstreaming services packs and integrating hotfixes real easy and you also can create a personelized , tweakt and stript bootable windows installation cd by removing windows components ,un-needed services and setting lots of options even before you install windows.
Using Nlite , i made an XP install disc with SP2 and all updates(at that time) of only 185 MB in seize. Don't like things as MSN Explorer and Messenger? Then get rid of them and make sure they don't get installed in the first place.

http://www.nliteos.com/download.html
or,
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4324.html


This is a very good guide on how to use Nlite:

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=284&p=1

They use XP as an example and the list of winupdates is from april ,but if you go to windowsupdate and click "review youre update history" then you can see the full list of updates youre O.S. needs.(if you have kept windows up to date anyway)

You can download these updates manually here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/s...displaylang=en

But be carefull with removing windows components , if you remove something you need then obvious it wont work later.
Like remember that windowsupdate needs I.E. installed to work for example. If you don't know what things are or what to remove or just don't want to remove anything you can skip it and still use the other options of the program.

Here is also a link to the Nlite forum:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?...b&showforum=89

And a link to a list of "What Not To Remove For Some Programs".

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?...howtopic=24318


One more tip , after you made youre cd , try it out on a other partition or harddisk first to see if everything works as you want it before formatting and installing it on youre system drive.

So would you need your original XP Disc to do the slipstreaming as i only have recovery CD's

Yes , you need to have an original windows cd afaik.

Even though i have Recovery CD's i have an i386 folder in my WINDOWS folder., so what files would i need?

I think it will only work with the original installation disc.

I don't think you can slipstream a 386 folder or recovery discs but i will have look if i can find something on it.

Recovery cd's isn't possible but if the i386 folder is still complete it could work , have a look here for instructions:

http://staff.stir.ac.uk/thomas.speirs/Slipstream.htm

They have a link there where you can download the Boot sector files needed to create a bootable cd aswel.

What seize is youre i386 folder?