RIS and Different HALs (Different Laptops)

[sysbuilder]

I've sifted through several pages in the forums and haven't been able to find any posts related to my question, so here's one for you:

I have 10-15 images I've created using Remote Installation Services in a Windows 2003 Server environment, each for a different laptop. I'm tired of all this space being eaten up. I would like to configure one master image which will be compatible with all the different laptops that my group works with.

In order to do so, I would need a central location on the RIS server which stores all the appropriate drivers for all the systems. The way I would prefer it to work (if possible) is to have RIS recognize the appropriate drivers for a machine being RIS'd and load them accordingly during the installation.

I don't want to mess with any drivers post installation : )

What I do not want is a folder copied to the root folder which contains all the drivers for all the systems.

Can someone provide some suggestions as to how I can pull this off?

Please let me know if you require any additional information--I am quick to respond.

Thanks for a great forum and have a great 2007.

[cluberti]

The most reliable way to do this would be to have your images started from WinPE (or BartPE), partition and format the disk, and run a WMI script to determine the hardware. Once the hardware was determined, you could then have the script connect to the network share and copy down the appropriate drivers to disk, then launch Windows installation with the appropriate OemPnpDrivers path set in the .sif file, pointing to this copied directory already on disk.

If you're absolutely sure machines would be a particular hardware type, you could follow this thread to restore drivers after the image, but again, you'd likely need to do something pre-image to determine the hardware type of the machine.

[chiners_68]

Are you using Riprep or flat images..? if your using flat images why do you have so many & if your using riprep you need to use a flat image.

i have 4 images for about 10 different types of machines. the images are only split for purpose not system.

ive got Workstation which goes on any workstation we have on our internal network & domain.

laptop which is the same i386 but the post installation installs are slightly different. this is for any laptop we own. which connects to our network/domain.

Standalone which is for PC's we have at out centres that do not connect to my work network or domain.

i can put any one of these 3 on any pc or laptop. Each image has all the BTS driver packs & RyanVM updates integrated. As i said all these images have the samei386 its just the post installtion tasks in $OEM$ which differ.

Oh, the 4th image is my BartPE image for repairs etc online without booting to machines OS. this is not really related to what you wanted to know.

Edited January 4, 2007 by chiners_68

[m3_del]

The solution you are looking for is autoimage by roguespear

We have 2 images one for all desktops and one for all laptops (Software differences) All we have to do post install is set up lotus notes :S

http://doitrightconsulting.net/forum/