Using Cmdlines.txt...

[RudeMood12]

oh, you can have you cake and eat it....with a bit of work that is....

It's possible, but you have to work around alot of stuff. And improvise in a way that may not seem to work but does.

how is your $OEM$ copied over in both situations? By your unattend.bat prior to starting? As if your use OEMPreInstall is negates the upgrade. Or is that the problem? $OEM$ is copied over ONLY when doing a clean install and not an upgrade?

i believe that the files in my $OEM$ folder are copied over via the OEMPreInstall switch. the only thing that i am copying over (which i didnt even know happened initially) is all of the drivers contained in my PnPDrvrs folder, all of which is referenced in the OEMPnPDrivers switch.

The problem with the OEMPreInstall switch, which triggers the install of the files in the PnPDrvrs folder is that you cannot use the WinNTUpgrade switch as well. Its either OEMPI or WINNTU. not both. i wish to upgrade, but by using the winntupgrade switch, it does not reference the PnPDrvrs directory. that is pretty much what it boils down to.

its not that the files arent copied over, its that they arent installed when windows is installed. i believe they are still copied over, but are not referenced as a place windows should look when installing drivers.

i am still hashing this out physically, so this will be an ongoing debate. we are rolling out xp/office 2k3 to about 100-120 users, so this has to be a stable process.

[Alanoll]

if OEMPreInstall is set to NO, then there is no file copy from the $OEM$ directory.

You'll have to manually copy them over yourself. So perhaps the SFX is your only recourse to get them over, as i don't believe the network is active when the presetup.cmd file would run or detachprogram.....

[RudeMood12]

if OEMPreInstall is set to NO, then there is no file copy from the $OEM$ directory.

You'll have to manually copy them over yourself. So perhaps the SFX is your only recourse to get them over, as i don't believe the network is active when the presetup.cmd file would run or detachprogram.....

right, that i think is my problem the OEMPreInstall cancels out my upgrade switch, which is where the trouble begins

ill have to hack at this some more and see what i can come up with.

[RudeMood12]

well, to update this issue, ive done several things...

first, i created a batch file that will copy the necessary PnP drivers as well as a registry entry that defaults the windows search to that location to the target computer. this is run before install.

second, install is run as normal.

i discovered through a test yesterday that if that DevicePath reg entry is changed, and new hardware is installed, it will look in that directory before prompting the user for drivers. i did this by uninstalling a modem on this computer that wasnt properly installed (i was missing a file somewhere) upon reboot, windows detected the modem and installed the correct drivers, grabbing them from my specified directory. previously, it had just prompted me to go through the 'add new hardware wizard'

so i guess i kind of met halfway. i guess when we finally migrate we will see exactly how this will pan out.