Speeding up multiple windows xp installations

We set up a lot of windows boxes, and invariably they require quite a bit of patching before we send them out the door.

Sometimes we set up 3 at a time, which can be a real big hastle when you have to download the patches all at once. Lots of waiting, coming back, checking, etc.

So I thought, why not set it up to where we proxy the windows update files. It used to be that windows update would use WPAD to find the location of the local proxy server, but according to various sources on the internet, you now have to manually configure the proxy using the proxycfg tool. More details can be found from this article and the squid faq.


Windows Update v5 and squid (squid wiki)

Another very useful article from javier arturo rodriguez:

JR's article on windows update and squid