OEM Drivers settings

[MickBurke]

I'm still fairly new to the unatended setup and am wondering if when trying to support multiple system types you would use different CDs or if you would add additional driver directories under 'drivers\' (as referenced here: http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/drivers.htm ). That is to say, if we have two system types who's NIC drivers were not included with XP or SP1, would we have a sperate CD for each with the drivers in "drivers\001_NIC\" or would we setup a "drivers\001_dellNic;drivers\002_gatewayNIC"... ? The article wasn't really clear if ou could have multiples of the same type of drivers, or if that would cause problems, i.e. the 001 is soomehow specific to NIC etc. Thanks for any assistance.

Mick

[Alanoll]

I don't know the exact answer, but as a way of formating the directories, I wouldn't touch the numbers themselves. As if you were to do them correctly, it would provide a more stable system as 1 would load before 2 and so on.

What I would suggest, is to use Subfolders, like

drivers\001_NIC\DELL;drivers\001_NIC\GATEWAY; and so on.

[[BM]Crusher]

you can have 10 different network drivers installed if you want (i have 7)...

also, it doesn't matter what you name the folders

(naming them in a numerical order has no effect on what order they get installed, windows goes through the detected hardware device ID's one at a time then checks all the driver folders for a matching driver... it's not going to look at your drivers in a numerical order and try to find matching hardware in numerical order, it just doesn't make any sense to numerically name the driver folders!!!)...

on my cd i have:

intel inf mainboard drivers

nvidia nforce mainboard drivers

via 4in1 mainboard drivers

nvidia forceware display drivers

ati catalyst display drivers

onboard ac97 audio drivers

onboard cmedia audio drivers

onboard creative audio drivers

sb live audio drivers

sb audigy audio drivers

sb audigy2 audio drivers

nforce audio drivers

nforce lan drivers

d-link 530tx lan drivers

d-link 530tx+ lan drivers

d-link 550 lan drivers

intel pro100 lan drivers

surecom lan drivers

davicom lan drivers

netcomm modem drivers

connexant modem drivers

plus many more drivers...

as you can see, you can have lots of each type... windows will not install the ones it doesnt need (as it detects the hardware device id's, it searches all the INF files for a matching hardware ID, then chooses the latest version from all matching INF files)

[GreenMachine]

... (naming them in a numerical order has no effect on what order they get installed, windows goes through the detected hardware device ID's one at a time then checks all the driver folders for a matching driver... it's not going to look at your drivers in a numerical order and try to find matching hardware in numerical order, it just doesn't make any sense to numerically name the driver folders!!!)... ...

It don't matter to me what they are called: I never go looking at them once installed. However, Microsoft tests have shown that it does prevent certain problems. Good enough for me: thier test lab is a lot bigger than mine. At some point in the decision chain, given that all else is equal, it must make a difference, it's only logical. Put the exact same driver in two different directories, and see which one gets installed ...

As for using different subdirectories, my personal preference is to throw them all in the same 00x directory, providing there are no name conflicts (which, surprisingly, are rare). This also keeps the OEMPnPDriversPath much cleaner in WINNT.SIF.

[mukeshnuna]

Hi [bM]Crusher.............

I also hv the same drivers as u hv.....!

and i m still making my unattended xp cd....but hvnt yet understood abt the drivers installing....!

...

I wanted to know....suppose now i hv installed all drivers in my pc running......but how wud i know which file or whatever ...is for that particular device...!

like suppose if i want to get installed my audigy live audio drivers during unattended..then wht and how many and wht type of files do i need to put in OEM folder....if u cud tell me...thanks!!!!

RAJ

[Alanoll]

@mukeshnuna

typically, its the folder that is labels XP in some sort of way, with an INF file inside of it, and some DLLs along with it.

http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/drivers.htm

[mukeshnuna]

Hi Alanoll.....

Yeah tht i understood........

but.....OK!

suppose u dunno nething abt unattended xp cd....n u still learning...!

n u want to include your all working drivers for audio, video, motherboard, lan, etc etc.......so where wud u get all those files from???

wud u look in your \windows folder .......or will you open each inf file to look for information it has....!

thts wht i want to know...!

thew link u showed to me....i read all that....it shows an example...thts really good....!

but still ???

thnks ..!

[Alanoll]

oooh, you don't have the drivers...

you would go to the manufacturer's website, and download the drivers. Then extract them. Typicaly there is an setup.exe and then drivers folder. THEN reference back to the link I gave you.