Drivers Instalation in Post-Install stage (New Method)

[MadBoy]

I would say you can already use it in RunOnce option. Just set it to Automatic and it should do the work for you. Start itself .. do all the things and close itself?

[Lost Soul]

well ive finally just gotten around to getting a chance to test this sucker out and so far i havnt found any real problems, but as for others have asked for i think,, i think a progress bar would be nice,, or possibly a progress bar just for the automatic side of it,, for example if the program is set to run autmatically then,, instead of actually seeing the app it self,, some sort of progress bar popup would apear in its place, therefor showing its current progress,,

i know its just mainly cosmetic stuff, but oh well, makes it look more pro quality if you know what i mean,,

well any ways just reporting back to say it was a successful test with your latest version,,, good job

[MadBoy]

Thanks for the report. Unfortunetly i found one bug myself when testing my program on Windows 2003 x32 R2. When you use packed drivers, program won't add correctly paths to registry. I fixed it in version 0.6.6 but it's not yet released due to problems with Encoding. I will release it hopefully this weekend. But that also means this program works on both Windows XP and Windows 2003 x32. I haven't tested it on x64 systems or Windows 2000 but would be nice if someone deed so we know it works or NOT.

Anyway, i started working on professional version of this program with nicer GUI and all the nice features that were requested. As soon as i'll get by the problem of encoding i'll post teaser .exe that will just show HOW gui looks like and what options will be possible. But seeing how it goes it will require great amount of testing and probably milion bugs in it as there is a lot to think about ;P

Anyway2, i'm looking for someone that has knowledge on APi DLLCALL's and has some experience with AutoIt so he could help me out replacing Devcon with DLL CALL's instead which should be better for all

Stay Tuned,

New version and professional teaser should come soon to shops ;p

[Avneet]

just a quick question .. does it work with basharat drivers pack..i mean if u extract the driver in one folder .. will this pick up the drivers from there

[MadBoy]

Yes it works with Bashrat drivers packs. But until 0.6.6 is out don't use Packed version of it. Unpacked will work fine. When 0.6.6 is out you can put all packed drivers in one dir and it should work just fine from there (unpacking it to C drive or wherever, installing etc

There's one more thing that is strange. I was told and always thought registrypath limit is 4096.. but when i tested it on all packed drivers packs from bashrat on Windows 2003 R2 the lenght of the line was 12000+ chars. Is it that limit for 2003 is higher?

Anyways to summarize. 7zip/Rar packed drivers won't work in 0.6.4 or 0.6.3. But unpacking it all and putting on DVD or so will give it some power Well Give it a try.

[MadBoy]

New version out 0.6.6. Fixed bug in Packed Drivers. Now should completly work with BTS driver packs even when packed.

Also i would like to show you guys GUI (incomplete one) of new Hardware Professional

http://oppetid.no/madboy/hardware.professi...resentation.exe

Most gui's are disabled. COnfiguration / visit website / Clear Log window works

Gimme some feedback about it

Enjoy

[kickarse]

Meaning that you could batch script it... throwing commandline options to the exe...

Also I've been having it where it will start to uninstall and then install the correct drivers but even though automatic is on it still prompts to finish or install any specific piece of hardware.

[MadBoy]

kickarse: i'm having trouble to understand what you mean with automatic mode? Can you elaborate on that?

As for batch files. You can always start it with batch (with .ini in automatic mode) and so it will install and terminate itself.

There's only one little thing that can be problematic. Rundll32.exe (as this process is responsible for drivers instalations) that program checks if process exists can also be in process manager for other purposes. And atm as for version 0.6.6 is confusing for the script. I'll try to fix it in next version.

[twig123]

I saw "CD/DVD/USB Autorun" in one of the menus...

U know that USB can not use an autorun.inf file unless you do a registry edit beforehand... right?!

Unless you know of a way around that

Edited October 2, 2006 by discountpc

[MadBoy]

My bad Didn't knew that. I'll just remove it

[MadBoy]

@DiscountPc - i checked on that USB autorun and you're right. What i managed to achieve is that either:

1. When you plug in USB drive you get "What you want to do" box and in first place you have Icon with program to start.

2. When you plug in USB drive and you go to My Computer and press enter or left click on USB drive to explore it, it starts my program (or well i tested it on other stuff).

Should be enough for USB drives. For CDROM/DVDROM behaviour is normal and starts automagically.

[kickarse]

Dont worry about it... I think I had confused myself.

Though, I appreciate you looking into the problem I had with installation of the hardware.

The way I am using it is with sysprep and a universal image. I have sysprep run a guirunounce with the ini of Hardware set to automatic.

Should there be a certain time before I can run the hardware installer after windows loads?

OT,

Also when I spoke of a paid for version I also meant that we could use it the way I am now with ghosting. Using it on mutliple computers for sysadmins and paying perhaps $20 (or something) for unlimited use under one corporate entity.

Edited October 8, 2006 by kickarse

[MadBoy]

I think you can easly run my program as RunOnce right after login without any timeout. But if it's needed i can add that field so the program would wait before 'starting'.

New version that i am working on uses diffrent approach as it uses WMI call that gathers a lot of information so i takes about 30seconds to start on my encrypted laptop :/ Reason i am using is that Devcon is free but i doubt i can distribute it with my program. Besides Devcon output is a bit of "broken" so it's hard to work on it. Anyway i might leave an option that you will have to download Devcon from Microsoft and just point program where it is located so it will work from that. That way i won't be punished for spreading their software. New version will offer also Backup for drivers (idea taken from IceMan ;p) and many other features with nicer look. Kinda like driversguidetoolkit. It's not even alpha stage thou. So it might take a while.

As for pay usage. Well for now current version is free to use I don't know if i will make it payable or not. Maybe. Your deal for $20 for unlimited machines is nice but comparing that it will prolly get me like 10 (that will use it in 10 big companies) ppl that will buy the version (200$ total) makes it kinda useless I was thinking more like 1$ for 1 computer or so license for 1 year or so. I dunno how i want it to say the truth. Of course i can't force ppl to not use it on many computers as i thinking adding protection to my program would be kinda useless thing. Everything gets cracked sooner or later. Just it wouldn't make this stuff realy worth a while if i'm supposed to get 200$ for that in total It's better to have it as freeware then.

Maybe even less then $1 if there's a lot of computers. Depends if there will be interest in that Maybe some type of licenses like Personal / Corporate / Mega Corporate

[kickarse]

I see...

It's just a wierd problem I've been having that's all...

Devcon is a okay piece of software but it would suck if it crippled your software. Because, quite frankly, it's a great program for us sysadmins.

A wait timer might be nice to implement in the ini file... TimeTillInstall or something

Also, if you keep it free you won't see me whining...

Oh, I also have to keep hitting "finish" as the end of installation of the hardware. Wierd... Version 0.6.6. The hardware that gives problems is a Panasonic Hotkey driver, Synaptics PS/2 Touchpad, and the Intel Video Drivers for the GM/GME 852/855 Series cannot find the correct driver automatically (have to manually show it where it is). I think that's it... Everything else installs fine.

Edited October 10, 2006 by kickarse

[MadBoy]

As for the Finish button problem. Program waits for rundll32.exe to terminate itself after drivers are installed. In some rare cases i noticed that rundll32.exe is running even before my program is started so in that case it will wait forever until rundll32.exe will be killed manually. I need to make start function that will detect any other rundll32.exe processes running and will add them to list. Then after new process starts up (when detection of drivers happens) it only waits for that rundll32.exe to terminate and nothing else. I should do it soon.

As for your problem with drivers. it's hard to say what it can be. Whole drivers instalation procedure isn't realy touching my program. My program just makes it easier for user to set things up and basically prepares whole redetection procedure. I would say either the path in registry is incorrect or missing? (check DevicePath if it has the right line where those drivers exist) Or maybe driver isn't in clean "unpacked" state.