Microsoft offers discounts for US Students on Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade through their Ultimate Steal program. Unfortunately, the download consists of three files:

• boot.wim
• install.wim
• X14-63452.exe

and these files are intended to be run from an existing Windows OS installation. It is far more useful to have these files in a bootable ISO image format, so that it can be burned to DVD and then installed on a clean system. This can be accomplished through the following steps:

1. Download and install the Windows Automated Installation Kit.
2. Run the X14-63452 executable. This will launch the Windows Vista Setup Preparation application and create a Vista subdirectory.
3. Exit from the Windows Vista Installation screen, and copy the Vista subdirectory to a convenient location, like C:\Vista.
4. Run oscdimg -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lVISTA_EN_DVD C:\Vista\ C:\VISTA.iso, or see the oscdimg command-line options. Be sure to run this command through the Windows PE Command Prompt within the Start Menu.

Congratulations, you now have a working Windows Vista Ultimate with Integrated SP1 DVD.