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Thanks! That's a pretty good idea... almost so simple I would have never thought of it! Maybe this will bump the post up and someone else can chime in.

Our company is migrating from Win2k Pro to Win XP Pro. This needs to be an "in-place" upgrade due to the complexity of so many applications in use by various departments (AutoCAD, Oracle, MS Project, etc..). The standard MS approved "best method" of wipe-and-load WILL NOT DO. I'm 90% there with this, but my sticking point is device drivers that either: a) are not found during setup and don't load, B) drivers that seem to need more files (that are there) but find them later... I'm using nLite to integrate hotfixes and drivers and that works great so far. I've used some AutoIT scripts with devcon.exe and SetDevicePath as somewhat of a work around. I realize we are very much behind the curve of just upgrading now... but it's been a sticky political corporate thing. I'm just wondering who has done this and how did you accomplish the task.

Woo hoo! Got it working now! Basically this is what I ended up with: 1. Used nLite to integrate the drivers I needed along with the hot fixes 2. Used Auto-IT to made a script (and .exe) that would: a) copy devcon.exe and SetDevicePath.exe to a local folder on the PC HD B) copy XP-Post-Upgrade.exe (script) to the All Users\Startup folder (to be used upon first GUI logon; sure I could have done RunOnce too... but it works) c) start the XP upgrade / setup 3. Used Auto-IT to make the XP-Post-Upgrade.exe (script) that does the following: a) Run SetDevicePath to establish the right path to the drivers; the location established by where nLite integrated them. B) Run "devcon remove =Unknown" (to remove all hw devices that did not get the right drivers and status of Unknown or ? ) c) Run "devcon rescan" (to scan for hw again, this time the right drivers are found because the DevicePath reg value is correct) d) Remove the XP-Post-Upgrade.exe file from the All Users\Startup folder e) Restart the PC Whammo! It works like a champ... now I'll just have to adjust this to add drivers for the other hw we have. But at least, in theory, I have the solution... just have to integrate more drivers as needed. Kudos for those that created and contributed: Auto-IT, nLite, SetDevicePath (sorry I can't remember all the names... but you know who you are... and you are appreciated)

So is this project still alive? I could use this functionality in our corporate upgrade project. Basically I'm at the point that after the first logon by the user (post Win2k -> XP Pro upgrade finishes), on several types of our HW, the NIC (hardwire and wireless) were not detected properly and are listed as unknown devices. I've been able to prove, via manual method, that uninstalling/removing the unknown devices and doing a new hardware scan will then detect the devices and pick up the driver from the C:\Windows\NLDRV\001 (or 002) folder (I've used nLite to integrate the drivers, works fine). For some reason these drivers are not sensed or found during the device detection phase. Remember, these are upgrades, not clean installs... Clean installs with the same source set created via nLite works right completely, all drivers found and installed correctly. So, I need a way to have the upgrade finish installing the right HW drivers... The basic thought is to: 1. Have a script/batch file fire off from a RunOnce key (which I can't get to work either with an upgrade, but that's another story) 2. Check the registry to ensure the right DevicePath is set or force it to the desired paths (I have this working with a command in a script) 3. Remove all unknown devices (don't know for sure how to do this, but maybe "devcon -remove =Unknown" might work ?? ) 4. Re-scan HW to detect the devices and install the right driver (again, I think "devcon rescan" ?? ) 5. Reboot the PC So, anyone out there with some insight on doing this?

Hi folks... still working on this. Basically I'm working almost solely with nLite. I "think" it is doing an OK and correct job of integrating our desired hot fixes and extra drivers. Basically here's where I'm puzzled and stuck... I'm doing my current testing of our Win2k -> XP Pro (w/SP2) upgrade on an IBM T41. It has an onboard NIC that is an Intel PRO/1000 MT. It seems that no matter what version of driver (Win2k) that is in use prior to the upgrade starting, this XP upgrade thinks it needs to install a version of e1000nt5.sys. This is the driver name for Win2k. The Intel drivers (via IBM and Intel) for XP are named e1000325.sys. This particular machine will run the full install/upgrade of XP and get to the logon screen. I logon and it prompts me to give it the e1000nt5.sys file. The file is on the HD... although I'm not sure it's in the right place. So I can manually feed it that driver file. Then I can do an update driver function and point it to the folder with the e1000325.* files and it accepts these and updates the driver. I'm thinking that this XP upgrade leaves just enough remnants of Win2k, that is seems to think it's OK to use either. However, NONE of the machines can function normally with the Win2k driver. All of them need the correct XP drivers (e1000325.* files). I can't seem to find where the problem is occuring. I've look at the device ID on several machines and it's the same. If I use nLite to make a ISO and create a bootable CD, doing a clean installation, this problem NEVER occurs. It always detects the NIC correctly and installs the correct drivers. Any suggestions on how to correct this?

OK, I put layout.inf back to the way it was... and that got rid of the error. Still not sure if I'm doing this correctly. However, I may have left out two files that are needed: intelnic.dll and prounstl.exe So, I'm adding those now and will re-test... Still hoping someone reads this thread and can give some further insight. Regards!

OK, I'm back again... and unfortunately I'm not comprehending exactly what to do. My first attempt is to just emulate or "replace" the file(s) for the HW that I need... so, here's what I've done: 1. I've downloaded the correct driver files I need: e1000325.sys, e1000325.inf, e1000325.cat, e1000325.din and e1000msg.dll. 2. I've put these files in the \i386 folder AND added them to the driver.cab file. The original file that supposedly is for this hardware is e1000nt5.sys. 3. In DOSNET.INF, I found the entry: d1,e1000nt5.sys 3a. So I put a ; in front of this line and added: d1,e1000325.cat d1,e1000325.sys d1,e1000325.inf d1,e1000325.din d1,e1000msg.dll (I have no idea if I should have all of those, but I was taking the better safe than sorry approach) 4. In DRVINDEX.INF, [driver] section I put a ; in front of the original entry: e1000nt5.sys I added: e1000325.sys (Should I have done this new entry in the [sP2] section ?? ) 5. In LAYOUT.INF, [sourceDisksFiles.x86] section I put a ; in front of the original entry: e1000nt5.sys = 1,,50719,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 I then added this one: e1000325.sys = 1,,125952,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 (this file size is based on what the properties box reports as size, not size on disk... so is that right? ) 6. In TXTSETUP.SIF, [sourceDisksFiles.x86] section, I put a ; in front of the original entry: e1000nt5.sys = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 I then added these entries: e1000325.cat = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 e1000325.din = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 e1000325.inf = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 e1000325.sys = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 e1000msg.dll = 1,,,,,,,,3,3,,1,4 The installation runs fine through the "Preparing Installation" phase. When it has rebooted and started the "Installing Windows" GUI phase, I get this error message: "The signature for Windows XP Professional Upgrade is invalid. The error code is 800b0100 No signature was present in the subject xxx Fatal Error: Setup failed to install the product catalogs. This is a fatal error. The setup log files should contain more information" I haven't tried to dig for the log files yet... I'd have to dig up a boot disk to crawl the HD... So, what the heck I have I done wrong... all of it? I've spend the better part of the day reading countless posts here and visiting some of your sites... I can't seem to land on the one that is tuned to what I'm trying to accomplish... or maybe I have and have misinterpreted something. Once again... hoping for your help. I feel like this forum is my last hope.

Thanks Electrician... Yes, when it comes to an "upgrade", the key fact is that with the NTUpgrade=Yes set in the Unattend.txt file, all other parameters (except for product key and DU) are ignored. So it doesn't matter if the install/upgrade is CD-based or network based... there's no "built-in" way of integrating extra drivers. I'll try your suggestion and write back with my results.

Hello All, I just joined this site (forum) today. Wonderful resource. Here's my task at hand: I'm running a project to upgrade our entire company's PC infrastructure from Win2k to XP Pro (w/SP2) via SMS2003. I can get the upgrade to run just fine via SMS.. so I'm 98% there. It upgrades "most" of my test machines with no issues. However, a few of them seem to have a problem with recognizing the NIC (Intel PRO/1000 MT). I have updated drivers for XP which work just fine if added/updated manually after the upgrade. However, I'd like to have all the updated drivers (and correct drivers) for our various hardware to be available to the XP install and NOT have any manual work after the upgrade completes. I've read the various articles on here such as the Pyron method. It seems that I'm heading down the right track, but I've not read a article/post that exactly describes my need. But who knows, maybe I'm just not reading between the lines correctly. Most of these topics seem to evolve around have a CD-based install and are mainly talking about new images. Keep in mind that I MUST perform an upgrade of the OS to maintain the applications. If some of you nice people here could point me to the right article for how to do this, I'd be very much appreciative. I "think" the Pyron method would work, I just have to be sure that the context of these files (file path) can be properly recognized so that the location of my extra drivers can be found. So, I wait anxiously to see if you can help.