Adding MB silent drivers?

[wolfshade]

I can't figure out how to make preinstall / silent audio, lan, IDE drivers work in my unattend setup of XP+SP1 Pro.

I managed to put corectly the .inf and .cat files for my INTEL chipset but now i don't know wich stuff goes where for onboard AC97 audio and onboard Intel LAN driver.

The MB driver CD i got has crappy docs for these and even the manufacturers don't have many to say.

Where in $OEM$ should i put them and most importantly wht lines should i put in the answer.file?

[wolfshade]

If i look at installed files for my onboard Intel LAN in control panel > system >device manager>LAN driver properties>driver details(shows wich files are installed) those would be the files i would have to put in my $OEM$\$1\drivers\network to winxp to install them?

[homiebrah]

Break your drivers down into sections, i.e. Audio, Video, LAN, USB, etc. Then, copy the corresponding drivers to those folders.

$OEM$\1$\Drivers\Audio

$OEM$\1$\Drivers\\Video

$OEM$\1$\Drivers\LAN

$OEM$\1$\Drivers\USB

And so on.

Your winnt.sif file should have the following entries in them:

[unattended]

OemPreinstall=Yes

DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

OemPnPDriversPath="drivers\audio;drivers\lan\;drivers\video;drivers\usb"

If you're still not sure, post the MB info and I can check out the driver package for you.

[wolfshade]

Well i think i got it anyway and found very helpfull tips on site like put directories in order like this : 00_chipset then 01_lan then 02_audio and so on.

http://www.driverguidetoolkit.com/

I get the driver files with the soft DriverGuide Toolkit who's manufacturer link was posted above then look in the inf file for what .cat file it need, paste it into the dir, rename inf after the .cat excpet for extension of course then paste all files into $OEM$\$1\drivers\[specificdir].

In my case i can put it in whatever dir i want cuz i run it from HDD and the RunOnce would get it in the post install from my partition -- by the way do i really need to put all inf files i use in $OEM$\$$\inf ???

[homiebrah]

First off, namimg the driver folder does not make a difference, as long as it matches what is specified in winnt.sif.

As for placing the .inf's, all you need to do is make sure that all of the files for a particular device are in the same place. For instance, I have an nVidia GF4 MX440 card. The driver set I use is installed using InstallShield. Using WinRAR, I extract the setup.exe to the folder: $OEM$\$1\drivers\video. In my winnt.sif, I made the entry specifying that location. During the hardware detection phase, it installed those drivers.

For my MB, I did the same. I extracted the setup.exe, and moved the onboard LAN and audio drivers to their own folders.

EDIT: Now I see why you asked this question. But, maybe it should be confined to this thread, as it refers more to it than this one originally did.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=19931

[motordude]

I got all of my Nf7 drivers to install ok but my question is, can I put say for example VIA drivers in the same diredtories and will Windows choose the correct ones that are needed?

I know I need to to specify $OEM$\$1\drivers\IDE Just not sure if it would be ok to dump both drivers into the same "IDE" directory.

I am running an Nforce board and my wife's machine is a VIA board. It would be nice to just have one disk for both.

Thanks in advance.

[wolfshade]

I think so in all my experience with installing drivers manually even if i pointed to a dir with multiple .inf files the windows would pick the right one.

Although i can't tell for sure u could put them togheter just eb sure u don't overwrite them or anything. If 98se would find the corect files then winxp should definitely do it.

[MCT]

i dont install drivers (yet, im still a n00b kinda) , but on the site (unattended.msfn.org) they label the directories with numbers, like 001_mobo

002_video

i think this is so windows will search for them 1 at a time, instead of searching all at once for them,

mind u, i could be 100% wrong, but i think thats how it goes

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

i dont install drivers (yet, im still a n00b kinda) , but on the site (unattended.msfn.org) they label the directories with numbers, like 001_mobo

002_video

i think this is so windows will search for them 1 at a time, instead of searching all at once for them,

mind u, i could be 100% wrong, but i think thats how it goes

No. The numbers only tell setup in what ORDER to look in these folders. But this has also a slowing effect.

e.g.: setup is looking for video drivers. BUT you've named the folders like this: 001_chipset; 002_NIC; 003_VIDEO. This means setup looks in the first two folders without succes. So, in MY opinion this is completely useless!

[MCT]

No. The numbers only tell setup in what ORDER to look in these folders. But this has also a slowing effect.

e.g.: setup is looking for video drivers. BUT you've named the folders like this: 001_chipset; 002_NIC; 003_VIDEO. This means setup looks in the first two folders without succes. So, in MY opinion this is completely useless!

thanks for the clarification

[wolfshade]

No. The numbers only tell setup in what ORDER to look in these folders. But this has also a slowing effect.

e.g.: setup is looking for video drivers. BUT you've named the folders like this: 001_chipset; 002_NIC; 003_VIDEO. This means setup looks in the first two folders without succes. So, in MY opinion this is completely useless!

Here is my opinion ( and the manufacturer's of my Intel chipset drivers as well ) they should definitely be installed before any other driver if possible -- this ussually is a req by chipset drivers. So theres a purpose to making such dir names (the info i picked on site about dirs and the rest i about 2 hours of reading up on chiset docs).

I wouldn't worry about a delay while the windows goes past the few dirs containing preinstall drivers -- unless i would have a really slow CPU wich in case i wouldn't be installing XP on it right? -- i think the actual delay consists of miliseconds.

I got a lil wiser since i first posted this thread