DriverForge v4.5.3
The Blunt Force, Easy to Use, Non-Confusing, Driver Installer

Download
http://sourceforge.net/projects/driverforge

What Does It Do?
DriverForge is a program that will automatically install drivers from a specified location, whether compressed or uncompressed.

*NEW* Supports all Driverpacks (all properly created 3rd party)
*NEW* Exit an automatic install by pressing ESC during application startup

Practicality
- Give a family member or friend a CD/DVD/USB stick with every driver they could ever need. Create an autorun.inf to automatically run and install all drivers from that removable drive on their computer.
- IT folks can use it post-imaging to install the rest of the drivers they didn't want to install pre-imaging. Especially helpful to install drivers from a mapped location.
- Download the latest drivers from all the manufacturers for your machine. Point the program to install drivers from one location and hit Start!

Usage
You must put all COMPRESSED drivers at the root of ONE chosen folder (not in any sub-folders of that folder), which will then be UNCOMPRESSED TO another chosen location. Any uncompressed drivers can be in ONE folder but it is recursive (drivers can be in sub folders as well). The program installs the drivers FROM the UNCOMPRESSED location.

The INI file will be created on first run with basic default settings. You may choose to edit them to your liking. On the top menu is the help function with a Read Me and link to these forums for help. See "Help" within the program for more information on the INI file configuration.

Sample INI


Supported OS and Languages
So far only tested in Windows XP Professional - English. Should work mostly in any language and Windows 2000, 2003. Not tested in 98, Vista or Longhorn.

Special Thanks To
AutoIT Forums, Boot-land.net, Paraglider, Amalux, WeaponX, WixFigura, Madboy, 7z, MSFN.org, and whoever created WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe

updated to v2.1!

looks interesting. any plans to add support for running from cd or can it accept locations like \Drivers where the CD drive is X:, DriverForge is in the root and there is a folder called Drivers so that instead of lets say D:\Drivers you could just use \Drivers since not all computers CD/DVD drive that is D:.

I'll add that option

Here it comes Sooner or later you will end up like me Having so many features you can hardly track where is what ;P

BTW. Your CHECKFORWIZARD() function isn't the best considering that you hardcoded english title, also WinActive isn't nessecary i think.
Also why do you put both 7zip.dll and un7zip.exe into the .exe shouldn't one be enough?

It won't uncompress without the 7zip.dll. And the checkforwizard() was made so far only for english. PID's change and two processes are using rundll32. The winactive probably isn't needed but if it steals focus while it's running it'll need to close it.

I'm not planning on adding many features or any more after this one requested. There are some that I want to add though. That's why it's called the blunt force driver installer, not the be all and end all. Mostly created for my own use at work.

Hey don't you encrypt your code? And are you still using Autoit?

ok this is what i get for not reading things right. I thought you added the feature already (i forgot todays date) so i downloaded and extracted every DP i wanted and now i have a folder with 1.77Gb of drivers, a blank DVD in the drive and I am waiting for the CD compatible version. no rush though.

lol... ok... I'll see what I can do

Here's what you can do currently...

X:\Path\To\Program\OEM (compressed drivers)

But, (and what I'll be adding anyways)
What your asking, I think, is that you can specify
X:\Path\To\Program\Driver\Folder\You\Set (compressed drivers)

X: drive being created on the fly... I can make it so the drive is relative to where it's being run from or relative to the folder and drive it's being run from
So one will give X: and the other would give X:\Path\To\Program. I think I am going to do relative to the drive it'll be run from and then you can write in where.

I'm guessing your using this feature for the unattended install?

well the big issue is my Unattended CD has gotten too big for a cd so i cant use all the drivers i would like on it (cant do dvd yet until i phase out the last 2 models on PC with CD only drives)

i would like to take a cd with compressed drivers / dvd with uncompressed, toss an autorun.inf on it that points to driverforge and have it update drivers on a freshly installed system

even if instead of specifying a path, if you could leave the parameter blank and have it default to looking in its the same folder as the .exe is run from for a folder called "DriverForge" and using any compressed/uncompressed drivers it finds there.

so installing would be:
1. Extract the exe to a folder
2. Make a folder called "DriverForge" and extract/copy drivers into it
3. Make autorun.inf
4. Burn the contents of the folder to CD/DVD
5. Put CD/DVD in the drive of the target system
6. Click Start after driverforge starts (unless UnAttended=Y)

You want it to find if the removable drive folder has compressed (7z files) drivers and if it does extract them to a location on the hard drive and install the drivers from there OR else if it doesn't find compressed (7z files) drivers to install from the cd location?

Geek, why don't you use Pro-S Hardware Installer, it has the features you ask for It's a bit more advanced thou and requires some settings

There's no way to encrypt the code. You can use obfuscator but that won't slow people down much. So i kinda gave up And yes i still use AutoIt

lol... pimp

I just built a version to handle removable media detection. So if the program is here at X:\Path\To\Program it will find that it's at X:\ and then you must put in the rest of the location to the drivers, so Path\To\Location\of\Drivers. From the root of the removable drive the program is being run from not relative to the location of the program itself. If you want that use OEM.

Still working out some kinks though, like the auto detection of compressed files in the location on the removable drive.

V.2.4 Updated!

See - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=728341

v2.5 Updated!

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=728341

Update v2.6.1!

Update v2.6.2

Big updates to v2.6.3!

Just a little thing for the moment: Your Changelog "carries" the year 2007, not 2008 ...

Your right... I'm stuck in the past!

Thanks for changing ... Oh, and you are making a very very very good product ...

Thanks for the nice words!

And now I've some questions and a suggestion...

First the questions:

• Is DriverForge able to search a folder recursively (also searching all subfolder)?
• Can DriverForge search and use a network drive?

And now my suggestion:

• Making a silent mode in Driverforge (My wish is to use it in the WPI Wizard silent but with a progress bar and the drive letter as parameter like driverforge.exe /WPImode /X:)

That's all from me for the moment ...

1. Yes it can use a already mapped network drive, either for compressed or uncompressed. Treating it as a local drive.
2. It searches all folders recursively of the folder you specify to find the uncompressed drivers, NOT the compressed ones though. All compressed drivers must be in ONE folder. However, all uncompressed drivers can be in folders within folders.
3. Silent mode, you mean no gui? Because currently there is unattended mode which requires no user interaction. (*edit* the 7zip utility won't allow me to hide it, but I'll see what I can do)

In my case the drivers are already uncompressed and so the 7-Zip utility isn't needed. The only GUI-like I "want" to see is a progress bar from your tool during the installations of the drivers (perhaps with showing what hardware is installing in that moment). And it would be very nice to "say" the drive letter via an argument / parameter ...

I see... I might be able to add an option to show a small progress bar. But I'm not going to be able to add what driver/hardware is being installed specifically at each moment. That's not what the utility was designed for (blunt driver installer). I don't know if I'd even be able to add that option in the future even if I wanted to. I don't even know if I will add command line options (archaic but useful).

Just a note, the program functionality though isn't going to change much from this point forward. Just tweaking and such.

The latest version adds a completely silent mode though. Probably upload it tomorrow.

Thanks a lot...

The information about the hardware DriverForge installs it atm isn't so much important, the progress bar and the silent mode is enough for me.

And again: You're making a d.a_m.n. good job and product

v3.2 Up!

Is it possible to add an attached working file with a folder that consist all the contents in their correct directory?
for example:

contents:
DriverForge v3.2.exe
Drivers uncompressed

AND

contents:
DriverForge v3.2.exe
Drivers compressed

Hi Ideas,

Are you asking to have compressed AND uncompressed drivers on the same removable drive? From where you'd want to copy the uncompressed drivers to a local folder on the hard drive, then extract the compressed and copy it to the same folder??

Or... are you just asking if you can put a folder in the root of the DriverForge program folder and then point it to that?



7zLoc will be filled in automatically with X:\folder\on\root\of\drive\and\program\folder\and\folder\your\looking\for

Release, DriverForge v3.3!

Is it possible to add an attached working file with a folder that consist all the contents in their correct directory?
for example:

contents:
DriverForge v3.2.exe
Drivers uncompressed [folders & sub folders only]

AND

contents:
DriverForge v3.2.exe
Drivers compressed [dummy 7zip files]

then by downloading any of these all we (end users) have to do is to place the compressed or uncompressed drivers where they should be and everything would just work, hands off.....

I'll think about it

Oh and v3.5 is out!

v4.0 released!

it worked very will, I would like to make a suggestion for both "DriveForge", "Post-Install". in many time people have big collection of drivers, it take long time copy, decompress and then install. we can easly knowing from Windows drvices manager what is the missing drivers types，so in your program UI give user option to select those missing drivers folder only, then run the proucess. it realy help to speed-up the total installration time. if people have USB or network Drive with decompress folders UI even can just click and map those missing drivers folder in Registry only. (Saving time to copy, decompress)

I am not good for writting so i drow a little UI in attachment. I hope it can help you

Dear kickarse,
I found out if select "Delete uncompressed drivers" option, it only delete \Drivers folder, but the registry DevicePath remain same even the \Drivers folder no longer in. I thanks it should reset back to windows default driverPath=c:\windows\inf only.

this is an interesting idea.
the only thing is that it might be difficult for Kickarse to know what each file stands for.
most of us are using driverpacks file.. but I also use my own pack..
and the driverpacks are updated so the filename might end up changing.



about this point you are right.
I am sure Kickarse will modify that.
on my test the devicepath is "c:\windows\inf;c:\drivers\3\mo\a;c:\drivers\3\mo\b...................."
but to be on the safe side the devicepath should not be set to "c:\windows\inf", but %systemroot%\inf (to cover the installation in a different folder), or even better, restore the previous value..

R.

Oh that's a good point about resetting the path. It should grab what the value is initially and then after it's finished it should reset it back. I'll add that.

Ultimately it'd be nice to add the option to scan a directory for compressed files. Show a listing all compressed files. Add an option to select all, de-select all, or select individual packs (like it was at one time but not as flexible as I wanted). But that's a bit in the future, it was planned, but I wanted to get the initial stuff working.

I have a sysprep image with drivers integrated but for some pcs it won't install some drivers. I thought I could use this for a post-installation of missing drivers but how can I integrate this in my script? Can it be done like this?
So in my script I put the link for the .exe with a UNC path to the folder where all the drivers are?

This has happened to me on multiple computers when trying Driverforge. It will recognize 2 monitors, and not install drivers for either of them. Then it will also recognize anywhere from 2 to 10 unknown devices. When you plug in a USB thumb drive, it won't be able to find drivers for it. I figured out how to fix this last problem by pointing it to C:\WINDOWS\inf, thanks to previous post. But any idea why these other problems happen? This is on multiple brands, laptop and desktop, about 30% of the time. Right now I'm looking at a laptop where the device manager lists 3 (Three) LGPhilips DVD burners with yellow question marks, plus 2 unknown devices underneath. There's only one drive, of course. Fixing these driver errors takes much more time than just downloading the correct drivers from the OEM site in the first place, but this program has so much potential to make my life wonderful!

Thanks for your work so far! I definitely second replacing the driver location to %SYSTEMROOT%/inf so that future devices can plug and play.

Tslug,
are you using sysprep ? or are you deleting the drivers folders ?

Kingskawn,
are you deleting the drivers, or are they accessed through the network before sysprepping ?

the issue here is very "simple" or at least straightforward
when running the sysprep all the drivers are "cleaned" and when restarting the computer it goes through a discovery phase.
most of the drivers would work, but unfortunately due to the way the driver inf are built sometimes some leftover are included in the registry pointing to the "uncompressed" driver files.
I have face this type of issue. and it has nothing to do with driverforge.
my way of dealing with that is as follow :
after driverforge running (and I do not delete the drivers in the program) I run a script that I did build:
- it simply check (using devcon) for the existence of specific hardware that I have tested to create this problem,
- copy the drivers in a local directory
- modify the registry accordingly to make sure next time it will look for the correct location
- delete the uncompressed driver folders.

this way I minimize the amount of drivers kept locally on the computer, and through this I minimize the size of the image.

how do I find the problematic drivers ? well simply by testing. so the first computer of a type that I create brings up the errors...
afterword it is easy to deal with.

how hard does it go.. well it ends up being pretty fast, and you will notice that very often it is the same drivers that are creating problems, in my case solving 1 network driver solved the issue for 4 different type of computer.

I am looking into a more systemic solution that we could use in coordination with driverforge :
a pre-script that would delete all the unneeded folder, thus by simply choosing not to delete the drivers after running driverforge we should not face the problem again.
but I have to really dig into that as it really depends on the way the drivers are structured.

if I end up finding any constructive way to do it I will share my findings with kickarse so we could see whether he want to include it in his soft or prefers to keep it outside. do not expect any update in a short period of time as I have a ton of things to do first.

anyway if anyone need help on how to manually do it, or want a copy of my script let me know, it is a first step...

Cheers,
R.

Not using sysprep, using Driveforge, not deleting the drivers folder, either. Source is USB or CD, destination is folder at root of local system drive. Today I found that by modifying the registry back to the %systemroot%\INF folder, then restarting, then rediscovering hardware after removing the yellow exclamation points, it discovered them correctly. I don't know why, it seems like DriveForge maybe installed drivers for the monitor that didn't work correctly, then the default INF just made it a plug and play monitor, maybe, and that was better or something. Also, IDK why driverforge leaving the default driver folder to the uncompressed drivers means that it can't recognize things as simple as a USB key w/o changing it back to the INF folder.

Anyway, I can't really give the computer back to a client w/o switching the registry back to the INF folder, so that'll be cool when that tweak is done, IMO.

tslug,

which version of driverforge are you using ?
kickarse is already working on solving the devicepath issue, so he will probably release it very soon. but if I am not mistaken he is also adding a couple of new improvement which could explain that the version has not been released yet.
until then you can simply script the modification in the registry
i.e.
save devicepath status
run driverforge
restore devicepath

I advise you to save/restore because in most of the cases you will have %systemroot%\inf but in some rare cases the device path might already contain different values.. so save/restore covers all cases

Cheers,
R.

I'm definitely almost finished. I've been on hiatus, bought a house, so I've been and am quite busy at the moment. But it'll be out soon

Hi

I've got an unattented installation sysprepped machine. The thing I want to do is at the end of the installation procedure call the .inf that will do a last hardware installation. This have to be automatic without any user interaction.
I already made an .inf. I don't know if it's correct but I looked on the 'manual'. Can you tell me if I'm correct?
I will work with the Driverpacks that are in 7z format and it must delete drivers when it finishes.



Will that autorun.inf executes at the end of a script or do I need an .exe?

Kickarse or anybody?

Sorry i've been out of touch with the internet.

I'll get to this tomorrow. I'm off to sleep.

v 4.1.2 (more of an interim to more gui changes) out!

This looks very neat, this should work perfect for a project of mine.

Question = when the ini file is filled out properly for unattended, just running DriverForge.v.4.1.2.exe will automatically install the drivers, no switches are needed ?

Thanks I will test soon.

EDIT:

can I use this

DriverExtract=%SYSTEMDRIVE%\

instead of this

DriverExtract=C:\

That should work. Or you could try @systemdrive . And yes to your first question.

Great idea and a great tool!! Kudos. Kickarse!

One problem though:

I noticed that if I extracted USB drivers into C:\DRIVERS for example, detected and installed all drivers, and finally deleted C:\DRIVERS permanently. The next time I insert a USB thumbdrive/hdd, the system will not be able to find the drivers it needs, not even USB drivers that originally came with XP. I believe the tool may have changed the search path and points to C:\DRIVERS instead. Because of this, I normally extract the drivers deep inside "%SystemDirectory%\Driverforge" and let them be just in case...

I tested not from the latest version but several revisions back, so I am not sure if this has since been fixed already or not.

Cheers,