Drivers Instalation in Post-Install stage (New Method)

[MadBoy]

@Jedi82

Well you can do 2 things. Have the drivers unpacked on DVD and this should work, or have the drivers packed on CD (as the bashrat drivers unpacked take a lot of space, and have them unpacked by my program). However 2nd option is much slower as it needs to unpack stuff first. Me myself i prefer to use USB Sticks (much much faster - 20mb/s read comparing to slower CD) and i bought 4gb one to just use it for this kinda stuff You should be able to notice that it works when you will see that my program adds registry entries with full paths to drivers (you can see that in log file or log windows when it's doing so).

Have a nice time playing with it. It has a lot of functionalities.. If you want your .ini to be independant on CD/DVD settings.. you can set the Drivers_Drive to RELATIVE which is quite good. Check first page for details on that option.

[wiselius]

this might not be quite on the subject...

on a test system with some PCI extenders for hotswitching pci devices I'm currently using the devcon utility from microsoft to uninstall and rescan the device list for new devices.

on the rescan wondows automatically opens the driver installation wizard.

can't use the install option because the device is not in the list for I removed it with the remove function in devcon.

Would there be a way to catch the installation wizard or prevent it from running after the scan is complete and the uninstalled but visible device is in the list again?

I hope I described it understandable,

thanks in advance for yourtime

[MadBoy]

I'm not sure realy what you want to achieve but if you want to stop Hardware wizard to popup you might want to kill rundll32.exe process that starts up. So your little script would have to wait for process to show up and if it does kill it. Hope this helps

[wiselius]

What I wish to achieve is to automate the install process further so that one wouldn't have to click Next and Finish in the wizard, but once the device is in the device list use devcon to install it automatically.

[MadBoy]

Well have you tried using my program for that? Or just put driver paths yourself into registry and then you won't have to click next... as it will discover device automatically.

[wiselius]

that would solve it indeed I think.

the problem was mainly to stop the wizard from popping.

thanks for the advise.

[MadBoy]

Actually if you read the first post my program does what you need i think. It removes devices from system without drivers, puts correct paths into registry (you just give it like C:\Drivers) where all drivers are included (can be dir in dir in dir etc) and then runs Plug and Play rescan. If drivers are found no popup etc. But maybe it's not what you're looking for. Only reason why i would like to get rid of Hardware wizard is when lets say you deploy image, and you get my program started but before it manages to do anything you are getting hardware wizards. So what you could do is to run script before my program stats that kills rundll32.exe and then postpone my program like 15 seconds and start it to discover devices and make it use correct drivers. I think i could add an option to my program to kill hardware wizard before running my program in that (15 second period or so) when it starts.

[wiselius]

I'm afraid I was too far in my own program problems that I missed this functionality of yours, as I understood you program would only work when the device was in the device list already, but if the rescan is implemented in your problem(don't know how I missed that) that would be the perfect solution indeed.

I'll look into this combo a bit.

thanks again and alot for your time

[MadBoy]

Hrmms, i might see where the problem is now for you. You have pci extender switcher so when you switch your device to another windows it doesn't notify windows until you get it to rescan devices and in case of my program it won't run until it has uNknown devices in system or devices with bad drivers. I implemented that check to not run my proggy if not nessecary however for your problem it would be nicer to have it. I will think about it and maybe implement option to override first checks so it can be run even if no drivers have failures so my program would add registry entries to registry and then run Plug & Play for you and it would find the devices you need. Tell me if i understand you right?

[zzzz]

As I understand, this method just installs drivers after the first logon into windows, right? So, it's later that the other 2 methods?

Because I want my windows to look nice when I first login (having graphic driver installed already), can this method do that?

[MadBoy]

Yes this method is for using it after first windows start. However you can try using it in other phase nobody realy tested what the program can and can't do.

If it won't work to achieve what you need you could do it this way (however my program isn't fully yet ready for that but it will be if i get time and when i will need it for my own needs at work - and soon i will)

1. Setup unattended CD with 1st autologin to windows

2. Setup my program to be autostarted with RunOnce method, make it detect drivers etc (set it up in auto mode)

-- here i need to add "reboot" option and auto login option (actually not that hard but it will require you to put login/pass into .ini i think)

3. Here my program autoreboots when it's done and autologins to windows

4. Cleans up his entries in registry about autologin and woila

I think i'll start with adding reboot option (easiest) then you will just have to login to windows and you will have what you need.

[zzzz]

Thanks for the reply.

But I think I'll stick with pyron or autoit method, much simpler .

[wiselius]

You discribed that correctly indeed Madboy.

and from your post I understand that your program only rescans if there have already been unknown/failng devices in the system which your program deinstalled?

Edited March 12, 2007 by wiselius

[MadBoy]

@wisalius

My program discovers devices that have some kind of problem but are visible in system. That's why in your case it wouldn't work as my program will check for Problematic devices and notice there aren't any. This is done so users won't do unnessecary work on this. However i can add option "force_run_anyway" (or so) to my program in [ADVANCED] section in .ini and it would skip that check. If it skips the check here's what happens:

1. Adds path with drivers to REGISTRY

2. Tries to remove problematic devices (but it doesn't find any so no problem anyway)

3. Force Plug & Play detection

.... and here your devices should show up and drivers installed properly

4. Program would terminate after drivers get installed

At least that's theory

[MadBoy]

I have new version (0.7) ready Just waiting for MSFN to give me some space for my thread so i can upload it directly to forum. New version adds Reboot options in automatic mode, force_run for @wisalius, and does some minor fixes that i will put in changelog as soon as version is released