Adding drivers during unattended install

[KingAFW]

Hi

Wanted to ask a quick question, posted this a couple of times before but nobody seemed able to help out.

We're building and setting up a lot of different computers/hardware and Im trying to set up an unattended routine for all fresh installs.

What im after is to have a driver folder on a network distribution which cointains all the drivers for all our hardware, then during unattended install windows checks this folder when installing the VGA/Lan/audio drivers etc.

After reading a bit I got the impression that I have to somehow make windows copy this folder temporarily to the computer Im installing windows on but I also want this driver archive removed when hes done installing the drivers needed.

All help would be appreciated.

[strel]

Windows copies all drivers it has to system drive. Ideas:

1. You could make a folder with all drivers, integrate into your unatteded set which could install with basic system settings preconfigured like networking on a per MAC basis (nlite function or manually) or DHCP, and even with the maximum screen resolution that the worst monitor could handle. And then make a script to delete unused drivers from the installation, as you can know where the files are copied and what file match what driver, semi-automatically (selecting manually what to delete) on first run. Or even automatically if the script could interpret a list of hardware given by a hardware identification program, deleting the files of each unused driver.

2. You could make an unattended set integrating only the network drivers needed for the machines you handle, I don't think you need a lot at all, with preconfigured network settings on a per MAC basis or with DHCP. And having the driver folder shared on a machine on the network, manually search the drivers for each device through a microsoft network, after installation finished.

3. You could try sysprep for computers with compatible HAL and ACPI. Could be a bunch of it.

KB302577

4. Symantec ghost suite have deploy anywhere feature for hardware-independent imaging.

http://www.symantec.com/business/ghost-solution-suite

Edited September 9, 2008 by strel