Driver integration

[fdv]

This question applies to all NT-based OS's including XP.

Let me say this at the outset: I already know how to integrate drivers into TXTSETUP.INF and have Windows detect and install them automatically.

In TXTSETUP, driver detection starts at the [HardwareIdsDatabase] section. Drivers that must be installed early therefore get priority by being detected right away.

However... open up SYSSETUP.INF and find [DeviceInfsToInstall]

You will see all of the INF files for the various devices Windows supports. I use 2000, and since it's an old OS, I comment out display.inf since 2000 would not detect any modern video card and would default to 640 x 480 anyway, and it speeds up my setup. I also comment out tape.inf and netirsir.inf since I don't use tape drives or infrared devices.

But what if I were to add my own driver INF here to this section? I am sure that it would work for video drivers. But what about SATA drivers? What about ICH9 chipset drivers? Can they be installed later than devices in TXTSETUP?

[fdv]

Furthermore, have a look at this picture.

It is a Windows 2000 and XP TXTSETUP file side by side.

Why couldn't I copy the text from the XP to the Win2k, and use XP's intelide driver?

Couldn't we expand all of the device drivers 2000 uses this way?