ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-03, 17:18:

Slipstreaming wasnt needed at the start of XPs life because most of the SATA drivers were in there already, it wasnt until you got a new crop of hardware that you needed press f6 drivers, which started to come about the time of SP1a to SP2.

There was no SATA at the start of XP; I am pretty sure SATA only came along in 2003ish... and at least some of the original SATA controllers didn't have AHCI or RAID, so then they would just stay in legacy IDE mode and XP was fine. (I'm trying to figure out when AHCI was standardized, but while the 0.95/1.0 specs are on Intel's web site, I can't find a date on them)

The real problem, like with many things in that time period, is the fact that XP had an unusually long life. If they had released a version of Windows in fall 2004, that version would have had a built-in generic AHCI driver and all would have been good. But instead, AHCI comes knocking in 2003ish, certainly by 2005-6ish people are talking about features like NCQ that require AHCI, and oops, still installing Windows XP with its 2001-era set of bundled storage drivers. And the F6 mechanisms that was primarily for servers/workstations with exotic storage controllers... now takes on a new life.

(The other interesting question is, why didn't Microsoft add some drivers to the SP2/SP3 media? AFAIK, the SP2/SP3 discs include the same drivers support the same hardware as the RTM ones, including the restriction on USB floppy drives, the lack of AHCI controller support, etc.)

It sets up an environment in RAM that allows you to mount an ISO, load the contents into the RAM and presents it to the computer as a mounted optical drive so you can install the OS. It also scans the system for storage devices like SATA controllers and then it searches the drivers you have added (it comes with a package of common drivers when you download it) and uses them while installing the OS.

Its sort of like the Linux enviroments, but its better suited to installing Windows. And its really good with XP and makes installing XP onto newer hardware so easy. Especially because it finds the device drivers itself, combined with Snappy Driver Installer its a powerful tool and worth looking at.

It has a lot of "paperwork" and its all worth reading if you install OSs like XP a lot. It can be used for Win9x too.