I was wondering if anyone has setup a network install using different .SIF files and $OEM$ folders for differnt workstation configurations?

I know that I could put all the drivers for every configuration into one $OEM$ folder, but I'd rather not have all of the unnecessary drivers installed on machines that do not need them.

I've been able to successfully create a .SIF and a $OEM$ directory for each type of workstation configuration.

Now, my problem is this:

If I have the multiple $OEM$ structure for the drivers unique to each configuration, how can I manage the files common to all of the configurations? (i.e. monitor/print drivers, patches, apps, etc.) I don't want to have to manage 15 copies of the .Net framework install in my source.

I've tried putting the "common" files into the default $OEM$ structure under the I386 directory and then using the OemFilesPath= to point to different $OEM$ structure in hopes that they would somehow merge.

Just wondering if I've missed something or if anyone else has had this kind of dilema?

Well... if u r set to use several images, all with diffrent folder structures and driver sets.... there are not much to do as i can see it except, associating an (1) image with several sif files.

My recommendation is to keep it simple (dont over work yourself )... one basic image with all drivers $OEM$ and so on... if u want diffrent config for the machines. then just associate the diffrent sif files to the one image...

keep truckin...

I don't know if this is exactly what you are after, but here's my setup for managing different systems:

Directory structure:

XPCD

-------->BASE

            -------->i386

            -------->$OEM$

                        -------->$1

                                    -------->Install

-------->CUSTOM

            -------->HADES

                        -------->i386

                        -------->$OEM$

                                  -------->$1

                                                  -------->Install

            -------->HERMES

            -------->APHRODITE

            -------->ZEUS

            -------->SIFS

That's the general layout. Under the base directories, I have any files/folders that are going to stay the same no matter what machine I build the UI for.

Under custom, I put ONLY files that need to change.

Pay attention the the SIFS directory. I name each sif winnt.sif.machinename.

At build time, I have a batch file that handles the assimilation.

c:\build_ui HERMES

The cmd file takes the name of the machine as input, copies the base dir and the machine's custom files into a holding directory, copies and renames the winnt.sif into the holding directory, builds the image into an ISO, and deletes the holding dir.

At one point I was really getting tricksie in the build. I was appending text files into txtsetup.oem based on which SATA drivers were needed.

It takes a while to get it set up, but it worked great.

I'd give you better examples, but I went back to using a single install source for all my machines. I'm working on a .vbs that will take the machine name as input, and install apps based on that.

Setup will only install drivers for the hardware it sees. Just because you have drivers in a folder doesn't mean they will get installed. You don't have to have them in $OEM$ either. You tell setup to look in a certain folder with the "OemPnPDriversPath=" statement in winnt.sif.

Yeah, I know that the setup will only install the drivers it needs. But if I'm putting all of the drivers (approx 80MB) for all the configurations into a single $OEM$, a single machine may only use about 10MB of those.

I think I'm going to need write script like knewman01 did in order to merge a common base $OEM$ folder with a specific configuration $OEM$ folder.

I might also play around with my source server and see if I using some NTFS Junctions will work. I'm just not sure managing the junctions will be to much of a pain.