Windows 7 - Knowing which driver files to add
Hello Everyone,
My company is making the switch over to Win7 (skipped Vista) so I have some quick learning ahead of me. My first road block is hardware drivers. I want to make a single image, usable across 3 different HP model notebooks. To do this I've taken a WIM file from a current configuration and have it mounted up using DISM.
The question is this: When I extract any particular hardware driver, say for instance the USB Host Controller, there are numerous files inside including the installer package executables. How do I know which files to inject into the WIM? I tried extracting ALL of the files for each of the various drivers into a single directory and injecting the enitre directory - this resulted in a blue screen IRQL error during setup. I know for sure that an .INF is required for each driver but I need to figure out how to strip out the unneeded files. We are also running 64-bit so I need to exclude 32-bit alternatives.
Thank you in advance!
My company is making the switch over to Win7 (skipped Vista) so I have some quick learning ahead of me. My first road block is hardware drivers. I want to make a single image, usable across 3 different HP model notebooks. To do this I've taken a WIM file from a current configuration and have it mounted up using DISM.
The question is this: When I extract any particular hardware driver, say for instance the USB Host Controller, there are numerous files inside including the installer package executables. How do I know which files to inject into the WIM? I tried extracting ALL of the files for each of the various drivers into a single directory and injecting the enitre directory - this resulted in a blue screen IRQL error during setup. I know for sure that an .INF is required for each driver but I need to figure out how to strip out the unneeded files. We are also running 64-bit so I need to exclude 32-bit alternatives.
Thank you in advance!
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Posted by:
dunnpy
13 years ago
You could use something like Driver Max on a built model - it will 'backup' the drives in use.
The only downside is that is creates its own custom .inf file to install with - but at least you should be able to pick through the files it backs up and identify which files you will need and replace with proper .infs if necessary.
You could then include a driver folder stucture in the WIM (or do a WMI model query that then copies the correct driver folder down) that contains all of the drivers required for those models and then include each folder path in the 'Device Path' registry key - More info here (bottom section 'Existing Windows Installations'). Depends how you are managing the drivers.
Hope this helps,
Dunnpy
The only downside is that is creates its own custom .inf file to install with - but at least you should be able to pick through the files it backs up and identify which files you will need and replace with proper .infs if necessary.
You could then include a driver folder stucture in the WIM (or do a WMI model query that then copies the correct driver folder down) that contains all of the drivers required for those models and then include each folder path in the 'Device Path' registry key - More info here (bottom section 'Existing Windows Installations'). Depends how you are managing the drivers.
Hope this helps,
Dunnpy
Posted by:
imgguy
13 years ago
@ Dunnpy
Thank you for the response. I can't believe I've never heard of Driver Max. This looks like the the tool I've been searching for.
At this time I'm not 100% sure how I will be managing the various drivers. Currently I have a directory structure containing each of the various components on my build system: c:\drivers\<model>\<component>. I'm assuming the WIM will accecpt all of the various drivers for each of the 3 systems and during the Win7 install the proper drivers will be pulled.
Thank you for the response. I can't believe I've never heard of Driver Max. This looks like the the tool I've been searching for.
At this time I'm not 100% sure how I will be managing the various drivers. Currently I have a directory structure containing each of the various components on my build system: c:\drivers\<model>\<component>. I'm assuming the WIM will accecpt all of the various drivers for each of the 3 systems and during the Win7 install the proper drivers will be pulled.
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