Driver Base

[Yonderboy]

Hi all,

I have a question specifically for @prathapml, off course any other answers are also welcome.

Contrary to most of the people here that use their unattended cd mainly for home purpose, I often have to configure an OEM system. I use mainly Intel and MSI motherboards and MSI components where possible. The process I do, is same all the time regarding software (setup Win XP, drivers, WU, customization, office XP, Antivirus, some basic utilities), only the hardware is changing all the time and so is changing the driver base needed.

What I am specifically interested is

1) how @prathapml accomplished his driver base as he mentiones in one of his threads.

Intel INF update is OK, but what about VIA chipset drivers, and SiS mobo drivers?How can I be sure that the INF and CAT files I extract, provide everything needed for my hardware? How did U extracted VIA drivers (INFs and CATS at all), where did U get them? (via4in1 is a mess, is VIAMACH.INF enough?)

2) Most of the drivers for onboard components are in a form packaged exe that after extraction has the form of "directory structure + root files + setup.exe". For example Intel onboard SOUND is packaged like this. After extraction there is a setup.exe, some files and dirs. One of directories is "smaxwdm" (means probably soundmax wdm drivers) and contains INFs and CATs. But How can I be sure that it is enough for hardware to work? What if the setup.exe adds some registry entries that will be missed if I use the INF driver instalation method? Off course, I could do a system state screenshot before and after and compare the registries. But what if the reg entries are system specific and are not transferable?

3) Most of the driver packages forementioned contain DATAx.CAB files. I suspect that THEY ALSO contain the INFs and CATs needed. But those CAB files are never in Microsoft Cab format. The SETUP.EXEs don't have any switches that would provide extraction of CABs.

Does somebody know a tool to extract CABINET files not in MS format?