Drivers From CD (Simple Method)

Updated: 11/08/05 (The old AutoIt Method is available here.)

This is not my method. Major thanks to idle.newbie and hp38guser, as most of this is their work.
Thanks also go out to Pyron for making SetupCopyOEMInf.exe and WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe, which are used in this method.
The info from this outline is from this post, and, more specifically: here, here, and here.

This is a method of automatically installing drivers (which are located on your CD), for devices that are plugged into the computer that WindowsXP is being installed on. This new way uses a Batch file. Why another way, you ask? The reason is simple:
This method does not need the use of a FAKE setup.exe, nor does it need extra lines in TXTSETUP.SIF (like other methods do). It's very simple and straightforward.

It's as easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Download the attached zip file, and unzip its contents to $OEM$\.
(There are 6 files in the zip: 7za.exe, Drivers.cmd, nircmd.exe, Process.exe, SetupCopyOEMInf.exe, WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe)

(These files will run from the CD, and are never copied to the Hard Drive.)

2. Open up winnt.sif (located in i386), and add two lines under [GuiUnattended], as shown below:

If you WANT the cmd window (batch file) to show, use THIS code:
Winnt.sif

If you DO NOT want the cmd window (batch file) to show AT ALL, use THIS code:
Winnt.sif

(If you want more info on this coding, see this post, and this post.)

3. Place any drivers you want to have auto-detected into $OEM$\Drivers (you must create the directory).


Notes:
-= This method does not require any files to be copied over the the HDD - it runs totally from the CD.
-= Plug'n Play devices are detected during Windows Setup after the DetachedProgram stage (t-39), which is when this script is run, so Windows Setup will detect and install all applicable drivers.
-= If you are using a Normal XP CD (SingleBoot), don't worry about spaces in the folder names. (For example: "Wireless Card Drivers" will work just as well (even though there are spaces in the name) as "Wireless_Card_Drivers").
-= If you are using a MultiBoot Disc, you can also use spaces anywhere - EXCEPT in SourcePath. Example (red=won't work; green=will work):

-= Also, please note this method will not work for MassStorage Device drivers.
-= It should be noted that WatchDriverSigningPolicy works most of the time, but occassionally the dialog for the installation of unsigned drivers pops up nevertheless. Pyron said he has no idea why, but Setup seems to ignore the registry values sometimes.


If you are still confused, here is a sample XPCD layout (colors correspond to the steps above):



More Info

What's In It?
The attached zip contains the following files (ALL should be placed in your $OEM$ directory):

7za.exe
7za.exe is the command line version of 7-zip v4.23 (link).
This file is used only if you add a "Drivers.7z" file. (It will extract the "Drivers.7z" to the Hard Drive).
If you are not using compressed drivers, it is safe to delete this file.

Drivers.cmd

NirCmd v1.80
Created by NirSoft (link)
Used to run Ticker script.

Process.exe v2.03
Created by Beyond Logic (link)
Used to pause setup, set process priorities, and kill processes while drivers install.

SetupCopyOEMInf.exe
Created by Pyron (link)
It scans a dir recursively and calls SetupCopyOEMInf for every .inf it finds (which copies a specified .inf file into the %windir%\Inf directory).

WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe
Created by Pyron (link)
Basically, this makes it so that when Windows finds non-signed drivers (non-WHQL), it doesn't care.
The source for WatchDriverSigningPolicy is here. Although the attachment doesn't seem to be working, the basic outline of the code is in the post.


How Does It Work? (A Much Simplified Guide)
When Windows Setup reads the GuiUnattended section of winnt.sif, it will load up our Drivers.cmd code.
The Drivers.cmd file will first pause Windows Setup (using Process.exe).
Next, it will activate WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe so that we can install unsigned drivers.
The batch script will then determine if compressed drivers exist. If so, it will extract them.
Then it will run SetupCopyOEMInf.exe to scan every subdirectory in $OEM$\Drivers (or %systemdrive%\Drivers if compressed drivers exist) and add copy all the .inf files so that Windows will recognize and install drivers for every PnP device (that you included drivers for).
Finally, we resume Windows Setup (again, using Process.exe).


What About Compressed Drivers?
If you use compressed (.7z) drivers, make sure to ADD your compressed "Drivers.7z" to the $OEM$ folder. The batch will automatically detect the compressed drivers (make sure it is named "Drivers.7z"), unzip it to the Hard Drive (using the included "7za.exe"), and then scan the Hard Drive (instead of the CD) for .inf files.



Updates:
11/08/05: Major updates:

• Solved the problem of setup continuing before all the .inf files are scanned and integrated.
• New Method - (Batch file instead of AutoIt) - Windows Setup will now pause (based on this post and also this post and this post).
• Added Process.exe v2.03, and NirCmd v1.80 to the zip - These are the programs we use to pause Windows Setup.
• This method now works with compressed drivers - just add your "Drivers.7z" to the $OEM$ folder. The batch takes care of the rest.

10/11/05: New upload again. This time, the Drivers.au3 file is altered again, and the code to be entered into winnt.sif has been changed. This entire method runs from CD (no files copied over!) This is all from this post. Again- I personally tested this method (as has hp38guser) and it works!
08/01/05: Re-uploaded the zip file. The only updated file in the zip is the Drivers.au3 - it's a smaller file, with less coding (i.e., no extra crap, as per hp38guser's request (here). It has been tested, and is working.

Attachment Updated: 11/08/05
MD5 Hash: E6FCD3B433BA04D0F0CC96CB7613DA0A

Download from Mirror 1

Download from Mirror 2 (please try above link first...)

This post has been edited by a06lp: Nov 30 2005, 05:50 PM

Can I use this method with the BTS drivers? There are 10 .7z files

http://driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

i downloaded 9 driverpacks from HERE all of them are in 7z format only i am not understanding which method to follow for integrating drivers to xp dvd and it is have 9 .7z files plz help about this, i had not downloaded only the cpu driver pack

You need to download the DriverPacks BASE and run it and the rest will show itself.

it is unpacking all the .7z files but i want them use without extracting to save my disk space, i saw the first page it is very good but there it has only one .7z file named drivers but now i have 9 packs now, please help me is there any way to do that

I just started testing this instead of using driverpacks.net. Nice that I can use my own drivers now.

I'd like to know though why my nvidia forceware 169.04 (from tweakforce.com) wouldn't install properly. After all is up and running, i get a ! in device manager on the videocard, and the picture dont look so clear. Uninstalling the driver, and then reinstalling it manually fixes the issue.

Any idea whats the cause?

Also, I'm thinking of setting up an nforce chipset machine too, do nforce IDE drivers get installed?

Download all driverpack files, including the BASE file, into the same directory. Do not unpack any files. Next simply run the BASE file, which is an executable. That's all you need to do.

First, i would just like to say many thanks for the people involved in making this awesome driver installation method; you guys rock

Anyway, i have a question which i would very much appreciate some help with, thanks...

I'm installing my drivers uncompressed and directly from CD, but now i have just noticed that all the driver files on my HDD is read-only marked...

This is then because i'm on Win2k, which in contrary to WinXP, dosen't automatically remove the read-only attributes when copying from CD to HDD...

So my question then, is if you guys think that it's allright to have all the driver files left as read-only on the HDD ?

I mean DLL's and SYS's and such i guess won't hurt, but as there are also CFG's and such, then i'm alittle unsure about if it's OK or not to just leave them as read-only ?

If it's not good to leave them as read-only, then i guess that i'll have to make a batchfile that runs 'attrib -h *' on all of those files from RunOnceEx, but i would rather just avoid having to do that, if you guys thinks it's OK ?

Thank's in advance.

CU, Martin.

I got a question, somebody can get me the code for a usb-stick with a letter is always U:\

The problem is i got a driverpack compressed in 1 files, called Drivers.7z, but the instalation is not work because, just work for a Cdsource, i got the win xp install from a usb-stick with a letter is U: all the time. Also the dir for the driverpack is in U:\$WIN_NT$.~LS\$OEM$\Drivers and for the winnt.sif is U:\$WIN_NT$.~LS\I386

If somebody can help me, please, And i think the solutions is change the code in the drivers.cmd file

This is the directory tree in my usb-stick

U:
---\$WIN_NT$.~BT
----------------------\system32
---\$WIN_NT$.~LS
----------------------\$OEM$
-------------------------------\Drivers\Drivers.7z
----------------------\I386

Sorry for my english

help, if anyone reads this - I have burned around 10 dvds trying to get this method to work. I am a newbie and this so tell me everything in plain english. The drivers will not install; I have it setup to do a clean format - do you see anything else wrong? Also do I need a copy of the winnt.sif and winnt.exe in the system32 folder?

Here is what my winnt.sif looks like and it is located under my the I386 folder which is located at the same folder as $OEMS$:

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
AutoPartition=1
MsDosInitiated= No
UnattendedInstall= Yes
AutomaticUpdates= Yes

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPreinstall=Yes
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
Repartition = yes
UnattendSwitch=yes
WaitForReboot=No

[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword=*
EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
OEMSkipRegional=1
TimeZone=35
OemSkipWelcome=1
DetachedProgram=".\system32\cmd.exe"
Arguments="/Q /C FOR /F %I IN (%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\$WINNT$.INF) DO (FOR %J IN (%I$OEM$) DO (IF EXIST %J (start /min /D%J Drivers.cmd)))"

[UserData]
ProductKey=*****-*****-*****-*****-*****
FullName="unknown"
OrgName="mine"
ComputerName=*

[Identification]
JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Display]
BitsPerPel=32
Xresolution=1024
YResolution=768
Vrefresh=75


[Branding]
BrandIEUsingUnatteded=Yes

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

[Components]
msmsgs=off
freecell=off
hearts=off
minesweeper=off
pinball=off
solitaire=off
spider=off
zonegames=off

[Shell]
DefaultStartPanelOff=YES
DefaultThemesOff=YES

System32 ??? If you meant I386, then you just need to add WINNT.SIF to I386.

Unless that was a typo, then there's your problem... In the root you should have a folder named $OEM$ and not $OEMS$...

If it was a typo, then check that you have your drivers in either '$OEM$\Drivers' or '$OEM$\Drivers.7z' and that each driver folder has atleast 1 inf file...

Thank you, that did the trick - now if I could get the display and the URL information to stay? any ideas on those? I tried to add the autoconfirm = 1 and it still did not take the display - it ask me to confirm the settings.

Thank you again for your help..

Try additionally adding 'ConfigureAtLogon=0'... I found several MSFN members stating that this should fix the display issue, but i don't know anything about if myself, though... The "URL information not staying" issue you're describing, i do not know what is about, sorry...

Thank you! that worked perfectly! I am now going through the unattended install forum thread to see if I can find out anything about how to make the home page stay - Thank you kindly for your help and patience!

hi

i use first method for install my drivers , but after windows installtion , my drivers not installed!!

please help me

my winnt.sif
--------------------------------------



-------------------------------------------------

my xp cd layout
-----------------------------------------------
├───$OEM$
│.......├───Drivers
│................├───000
│................├───001
│.......├───7za.exe
│.......├───Drivers.cmd
│.......├───nircmd.exe
│.......├───Process.exe
│.......├───SetupCopyOEMInf.exe
│.......├───WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe
├───I386
│.......├───winnt.sif

-----------------------------------------------------

my modem driver in folder '000'
----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------




my drivers.cmd
--------------------------------------------------


-------------------------------



pls guide me

sorry for my english

thank you

I have integrated all DriverPacks now into a Windows XP SP3 CD and noticed these scripts work fine with it. However integrating 800MB of drivers takes more time so I have updated and simplified the presetup.cmd script.

Winnt.sif

presetup.cmd

UPDATE: Removed ticker script, so no need for nircmd.exe anymore. Script now depends on sleep.exe to wait. I have included nircmd.exe only for hiding the script now.

This post has been edited by Acheron: Apr 21 2009, 12:26 PM

As I'm working on integrating the DriverPacks I'm encountering problems using the DPFinisher program as it assumes all drivers are copied to the hdd. Also the program does run some tasks similar as setupcopyoeminf but these are not documented anywhere. Writing a custom application to manually process the DriverPacks without the bloat from the DPFinisher program should make things more simply.

I've recently changed to installing my apps from a second data-drive/partition, instead of the %cdrom% based method, since that's even more faster, but then i thought to myself, why not also doing the same with the drivers, i.e. having the drivers stored on a second data-drive/partition, and then letting Windows install them from there, and so i changed the method described in this thread(uncompressed drivers from CD), with the following changes:

I placed the $OEM$ folder on my second data-drive/partition, and renamed it to Drivers, and then changed the 'Arguments' section in WINNT.SIF to the following:

(Where xxxxx is the path for the Drivers folder)

Just wanted to post this, in case someone would find it interesting...



This post has been edited by Martin H: May 17 2009, 08:37 AM

Has anyone successfully used this for XP x64 Edition install? (no driverpacks exist for xp64, so if this method applies, it can work wonders)..