Sysprep 86ing my NIC drivers

[cmarcusson]

Sysprep seems to be killing my NIC's??? I use a custom fully automated network pre-installation which I have been using for years. Only recently I've noticed that after OOBE the NIC driver is lost??? Windows installs fine and driver goes in fine during factory. Then when I sysprep, and customer goes through OOBE, the NIC driver is lost. When my automated system does driver installation, all 3rd party's are copied to...

Before winnt32.exe launched:

C:\TEMP\NET <- removed before sysprep

C:\TEMP\VGA <- removed before sysprep

...

After winnt32.exe complete:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\OEM\NET <-perminent

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\OEM\VGA <-perminent

....

All of these dirs are also part of "OEMPnpDriversPath" in unattend.txt

After OOBE:

all necessary files are in the correct locations, not only the full copies that I have in the SYSTEM32\OEM directories mentioned above, but even the system32\drivers\*.sys and windows\inf\*.inf and windows\system32\*.dll;*.exe;*.din and system32\catroot\*.cat files are just as they were before the sysprep. Everything the NIC needs to work is there.

After OOBE:

"Ethernet Controller?" in DM. Click on "Update Driver"

Finds the .inf no problem automatically in the WINDOWS\INF Dir and identifies the NIC, but for some reason it can't see that the .sys file is already in the system32\drivers dir??? Why? All these files are already here, and were working fine before sysprep. Not only that, but I have only had this problem recently. I have drivers for many many other NIC's that are fine. Although I do recall having a similar issue with the Marvell Yukon's about a year ago. My only solution to that problem was to actaully install the Marvell software, which I don't feel is necessary here because the NIC works fine before sysprep without the proutil.

Anyone else see this problem too?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Chad M