Drivers for muliple platforms(nforce,via,sis)

[flekso]

Is it possible to place multiple driver folders(OemPnPDriversPath) inside $oem$ so that install finds them as required ?

[MCT]

i think i understand what your saying..

u can put nforce,via,sis chipsets inside the "drivers" folder, but u cant have multiple "drivers" folders (with the name "drivers" u can put asmany folders inside "drivers" as u want tho (i think theres a limit tho for winnt.sif file as of how many it can read)

[baudchaser]

i think i understand what your saying..

u can put nforce,via,sis chipsets inside the "drivers" folder, but u cant have multiple "drivers" folders (with the name "drivers" u can put asmany folders inside "drivers" as u want tho (i think theres a limit tho for winnt.sif file as of how many it can read)

From the Microsoft site:

In Microsoft Windows XP, the maximum length of the OEMPnpDriversPath value is 4,096 characters. This limit applies to both unattended Setup and the Sysprep tool. When you use Winnt.exe, the OEMPnpDriversPath value is limited to 1,024 characters.

On your CD, create a 'Drivers' folder under '$OEM$\$1\'. In 'Drivers', you can have multiple folders for Chipset, Video, etc, and then break those folders up into Manufacturers.

It's actually described in depth here on this site:

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

I highly recommend reading through that guide, as it offers some really good suggestions, such as placing numbers in front of each folder so that setup will install certain drivers (such as chipset drivers) first (i.e. 000_Chipset, 001_Video, 002_Audio, etc.).

Your WINNT.SIF will look something like this:

OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\000_Chipset\Intel;Drivers\000_Chipset\nVIDIA;Drivers\001_Video\ATI;Drivers\001_Video\nVIDIA;Drivers\002_Audio\Sigmatel"
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

[flekso]

Thank you.

[mythosaz]

This is already asked and answered, but my image was developed on VMWare with an eventual target of Dell Optiplex using a similar method.

My Dell drivers are 010, 020..., and my VMWare hardware drivers are 510, 520... and both are listed in OemPnPDriversPath

This hastened development time considerably.