Add drivers to current installation of windows?

[phqu88]

Alright, so the deal with me is that i currently work for a company who orders every model pc/laptop known to man. What i have begun to do is utilize nlite on a machine then go physical to virtual using vmware. This will allow me to update 1 single image instead of maintaining several. Ive gotten it to work with different models as well as different manufactures. Problem i ran into is when adding a new set of drivers and doing my theoretical repair to my vm install killed the image that was working. The reason behind the repair is to add drivers that weren't there before. Im sure im confusing anyone who reads this...my apologies haha. But my real question has to do with...does anyone know how to install drivers to a current windows installation manually?

I have this kb article right here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/314479

Im revising my methods currently so i will give that a try...just looking for other opinions on this matter.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks!

[phqu88]

This is an XP professional issue...don't think i mentioned that.

[Tripredacus]

You can manually install drivers using the Devcon CLI app from MS SysInternals. Its only failings is that it doesn't like installing drivers for secondary virtual devices. By that, I mean devices that Windows doesn't find until after the first driver is installed.

For example, where I have encountered this problem. Using a PCI 2 Port Serial Card, that only has 1 physical port but is designed to use an adapter to handle 2 ports.

Windows detects it in Device Manager as Unknown Device\PCI Serial Port. I use Devcon to install the driver, it then creates 1 known device called "Serial Port (COM4)" and an unknown device called "PCI Serial Port". Althought I have the correct driver file to handle both hardware IDs that the physical and virtual port use, Devcon cannot seem to install the driver for the second device.

So if you are supporting any hardware that does something like this, you may run into this problem also.

[phqu88]

Well i was more along the lines of just dropping and going if you know what im saying? The kb article i posted earlier would be something along the lines of what i would prefer to do but im not sure if it works like im thinking. I did some browsing through the forums and found the Pro-S hardware application...going to attempt to use that later on.

[Tripredacus]

I see what you mean. That article in particular is aimed at the Windows Setup process. You can also use the Sysprep method if you are going to be adding these drivers onto a machine before it reaches production. I have done that before also, but I do not use a virtual machine for working with images, I use a physical machine every time. I do it this way because manufacturers (such as Intel for example) are notorious for changing hardware components within the same model number but the old drivers not working. For example, how later 945 boards magically started coming with the IME and SOL on them when before they didn't.

[VCC]

HMM,,,would the DriverPacks solve your problem??? Read the DriverPacks forums and they'll tell you how to add 3rd party drivers to the driverpacks. It's the only way to go anymore.