Custom Network driver into Vista WinPE?

[Mackhack]

Hi everyone,

is it possible to add Onboard LAN-Card drivers into the Vista-PE?

We are a system builder and have lots of different boards with onboard LAN adapters. Since we can start selling Vista now we would like to know if it is possible and if so how do we have to to this in Windows System Image Manager!

Thank you!

[p4ntb0y]

Most drivers are support out of the box for vista pe.

To install additional drivers in the offline mode you would use peimg /inf="location of you inf"

to do this by the online mode you use drvload.

Its all in the CHM that come with the WAIK.

Why would you want to use the WSIM?

Or do you want to create a base image of vista that goes on all you hardware?

Have a look at the BDD2007.

[Mackhack]

Hi,

thank you. Yes I'm trying to create a base image for all those boards with Onboard LAN. Some are not supported from Vista and therefore, it is not possible for us to install Vista without putting in a external PCI-LAN-Card first!

Hm, but with that peimg command you mentioned, isn't that only for F6 RAID drivers?

Thank you again!

[p4ntb0y]

It can be but it can load any drivers you like.

IE I have to load the ris drivers for my Broadcom NetXtreme 2 Network drivers for Networking.

So let me get this right your going to deploy vista by using winpe 2 then load your vista image onto your box , but you need support for you LOM "Lan On Board" so are you deploying your winpe image by RIS?

Whats your setup?

[ubernerd]

You should add the LOM drivers to your WinPE wim, by mounting it and use the peimg /inf= command

You should also add the LOM drivers to the Vista image you apply onto the boxes to automate the installation of drivers for the end user.

[Mackhack]

Hi guys,

thanks for your attempt to help me out here. OK I'm pretty new in all that system builder business here and it is hard for me to understand all those things although I went to a Vista OPK training day here in San Diego.

So let me try to explain in again.

We cannot use the bare metal installation method right now and we are still using the old school method over the network with at PE CD which is about 200 MB big!

I'm using the System Image Manager to create the answer file and then I'm using the DOS console to create that image with imagex etc. I have a shared folder on the server with our company logo in it and a F6 folder for Intel RAID driver in it. That looks like it works so far. But for some boards we need to add the LAN driver specific for that board.

That is my main concern right now. Another issue we have right now is that we have to punch in all of those infos by hand.

Wpeinit

Net use g: \\vistaopk\winbits /user:vistaopk\install install

g:

cd \vista

setup /unattend:g:\configsets\configset1\autounattend.xml

although I altered the startnet.cmd with those infos, and made a new cd with that altered file it is not working. The prompt is waiting for my to punch in the data to install Vista.

Thank you so much again!

[ubernerd]

Again ... you can add the driver to the WinPE CD and you can automate the entire installation process by editing the startnet.cmd in WinPE, all of this is described in the WAIK.

If you add the LOM driver to WinPE using peimg you can boot with net support without adding an extra NIC, and you can slipstream all the required drivers, RAID and NIC etc. into your Vista installation which is run from a network share.