[Alanoll]

this is true, but if you wanted to save space on your disk, why would you install the drivers from the disk? They'd have to be in an uncompressed form.

And actually the Path is set right when Windows Setup starts (before the GUI part starts) same was when it imported from Winnt.sif


I dunno about time saver? I seems like it'd be easier to have the drivers easily editable on a disk, rather then change the drivers make sure structure is correct, and then recreate the archive.

[RyanVM]

There's two possibilities I'm seeing: First, you could save time by having the drivers install directly from the CD seeing as how they wouldn't need to be copied. Otherwise, you could compress them to save space and have them be extracted, possibly saving time as well since you'd be reading one contiguous file rather than thousands of small ones.

And I don't mind making an archive, I've got a fast computer . Yes, I would leave them uncompressed on my hard drive.

[Alanoll]

this is true....
you would have one file to copy over, but then you'd have to extract it would might take awhile depending on the size (a few minutes really).


so the real question comes down to , Speed vs. Size, as it always does

[RyanVM]

Just for the sake of experimenting, I made a solid RAR archive of my Drivers folder. It went from 102MB to 21MB!

So how would I make sure it executed before PnP device detection?

And if you did it that way, I could extract it to C:\Drivers and never even need to change my winnt.sif.

[Alanoll]

use DetachdProgram

that should get it there before detection begins. I think anywayz...

Or maybe you could use a combined method of this and the rar. Use the setup and presetup.cmd files from this, but only to extract the archive, and then continue the setup.

[RyanVM]

If I understand how DetachedProgram works, it runs it concurrently with windows setup, correct? What has me nervous is that for a large archive, it might take so long to extract the archive that by the time it's done, some hardware will have already been missed. I guess that's where your method comes into play.

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

I've been trying to do this too. I've made a SFX archive with WinRAR, which is set up to extract to %systemdrive%\Drivers.

It silently unpacks like this: drivers.exe /S. But it doesn't get unpacked at all when I run it detached by winnt.sif!!!

However, I've noticed again something interesting: when you create a SFX archive you can choose a SFX-module, somewhere in properties.

You can choose between:

-default.sfx
-DOS.sfx
-Win.con.sfx (Windows Console)

The last two, and specificly the last one could be very usefull I think? Could anyone test this, as I'll be in London the next two days? (school trip)

[RyanVM]

By george, it worked like a charm!

And Bashrat, your problem was likely that you didn't put the /S flag in the Arguments string. It doesn't go with the exe. But I used the standard RAR SFX module and had it show me progress and it worked like a charm. No need for flags if you create the SFX archive properly.

XP Setup even waits for it to finish running before it does PnP Device detection! Win-win!

[Alanoll]

::marks another on the board for good ideas::

wow, this good idea thing is starting to rack up

[RyanVM]

For those using WinRAR to achieve this, this is my method for creating an SFX archive that worked. RAR up the subdirectories within your Drivers folder (I personally do it with the best compression and as a solid archive and it got a 5:1 compression ratio). Make it self extracting, but don't worry about any SFX options for the time being. Once the archive is created, add a comment to the archive (a shortcut to this is Alt+M) with this info in it:

;The comment below contains SFX script commands

Path=%systemdrive%\Drivers
SavePath
Silent=2
Overwrite=1

That will tell it to extract to Drivers on root (in other words, generally C:\Drivers). It will show an extraction progress dialog (so you can verify that it is indeed working. Change Silent=2 to 1 if you want it to be completely hidden. Overwrite=1 tells it to overwrite any files it comes across (not that it'll be an issue if you're doing a clean install).

So now you should have an exe (mine's called Drivers.exe and I'll be using it as an example) with the above comment in it (you can test its functionality too by double clicking and verifying that it extracts how you want it to). Place it in your $1 folder inside $OEM$. In the [GUIUnattended] section of winnt.sif, add the following line:

DetachedProgram="%systemdrive%\Drivers.exe"

Leave your OEMPnPDriversPath settings in winnt.sif the same as if the files were uncompressed on the CD. They will be extracted prior to PnP device detection, so this will not be a problem.

Attached is a picture of what the archive should look like.

Attached File(s)

•  driversrar.png (63.99K)
  Number of downloads: 892

[Alanoll]

what I like about this method (the one at the beginning) is that it recursively goes through the directories, and that means less user error It's happened a few times.

[Alanoll]

I'm going to pin this topic. It could come in handy. I've seen a few people asking for this.

[RyanVM]

Alanoll, on May 7 2004, 07:59 AM, said:

what I like about this method (the one at the beginning) is that it recursively goes through the directories, and that means less user error It's happened a few times.

The way I see it is that both methods have their merits and each kind of serve their own unique purpose. The advantage to Pryon's method is that it can be used with a "vanilla" XP CD which allows for repairs and doesn't require the files to be copied from the CD prior. The advantage to the second method is that it allows for compression which inevitably means room for more stuff!

[Alanoll]

yeah more stuff.....

go DVD!! I still got about 1 gig of room to fill on it. so....yeah...

[RyanVM]

Alanoll, on May 7 2004, 08:44 AM, said:

yeah more stuff.....

go DVD!! I still got about 1 gig of room to fill on it. so....yeah...

Yeah, I'm really starting to yearn for a DVD burner. I'm thinking one of those SATA Plextor ones coming out soon sounds nice (thin cables...mmm...). But as it stands right now, my XP install CD is standing at 420MB (yay for jdboeck's cleanup batch files), so no need for it quite yet. I'd image if I go DVD at some point, I'll be scripting office2003 and such in there as well, though.

[Alanoll]

yeah, that office sends it over the limit.

wish I had a cable SATA drives myself. I only have two ports, but I'm sure they have expandsion cards or something. I currently have 6 IDE drive on 4 cables (They're not long enough, and I'm too lazy to buy a new one)

[edmoncu]

im sorry guys if i didn't got it correctly , does this approach work with an unattended xpcd?

[Alanoll]

yes.

I personally use a slightly modified version of the very first post.

[edmoncu]

WOW!

Does this approach work when combined with the detached program method?

part of winnt.sif

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=DefaultHide
    OemSkipEula=Yes
    OemPreinstall=Yes
    TargetPath=\WINDOWS
    FileSystem=*
    UnattendSwitch="No"
    WaitForReboot="No"
    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore 
;OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\06_storage;...;Drivers\06_storage\nvidia"

[GuiUnattended]
    AdminPassword=*
    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    TimeZone=215
    OemSkipWelcome=1
    DetachedProgram="%systemdrive%\drivers\drivers.exe"

presetup.cmd

%systemdrive%
cd %windir%\system32

REM Scanning for driverdirectories
%systemdrive%\SetDevicePath.exe %systemdrive%\drivers

REM Enable installation of unsigned drivers
start %systemdrive%\WatchDriverSigningPolicy.exe

[Alanoll]

no. Not what you're doing. You'r trying to combine the original post, and then Ryan's. If you use DetachedProgram, then you need all the paths spelled out in OEMPnPDriversPath in your Winnt.sif as they will appear after your DetachedProgram executes.

If doing the first one, it allows for not having to type out all the paths, but the drivers have to be all extracted and to a certain folder, whether on CD or harddrive.

As a little experiment to combine the two, and since you're alrady setup.....
try adding the line for your Detached Program in presetup.cmd, leave out OEMPnPDriversPath and DetachedProgram in Winnt.sif and see if it works.