Creating Boot.wim w/NIC drivers for Server 2003 WDS Deployment

[stuffman]

Hi Everyone,

I'm having a heckuva time getting some drivers into the default boot.wim file found on the Win7 DVD. What I've been doing is copying the boot.wim file from the sources directory on the default media, clearing the read-only attribute, and using the following commands to mount the .wim file, inject the drivers then dismount/commit the changes.

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\boot.wim /index:1 /mountdir:C:\mount
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\b44win.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\b57win32.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57nd60a.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57nd60x.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57win32.inf
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\mount /commit

It all goes well, the file ends up being 5MB bigger after I've put my drivers in and dismounted, and I am able to import the .wim file into Windows 2003 Server R2 WDS. The final size of the boot image as reported by WDS is 840MB, while the .wim file is only 145MB. I imagine that this is normal. When I go to the client machine and try to boot to PXE, the boot image I've just added is nowhere to be found. I've repeated this process over and over again and it always yields the same results. I've tried building it on different machines, tried different drivers, and tried different .wim files from OEM copies, Vol. License copies and even one from a Dell CD thinking it may already have the drivers integrated, which it did not. I also tried adding a boot image that worked, then renaming the files (the ol' switcheroo) to trick WDS into serving my file instead. When I did that it told me something about the boot image being corrupt. Has anyone every successfully gotten one of these things built? Thanks in advance, I'm going nuts here.

Shawn

[stuffman]

For anyone who is having this problem, I figured it out. I was mounting and manipulating index 1 on the boot.wim file, when I should have been adding drivers to index 2. Here's what the functional commands ended up being:

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\boot.wim /index:2 /mountdir:C:\mount
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\b44win.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\b57win32.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57nd60a.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57nd60x.inf
dism /image:"C:\mount" /add-driver  /driver:"C:\vostro230\k57win32.inf
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\mount /commit

Now my boot.wim graphical environment includes the drivers that I need to get Windows 7 or XP on hardware new and old alike. Hope this helps someone!

[Tripredacus]

I remember making this mistake when I tried to make Vista install via PXE.

[Gelob]

Just a tip, if your running WDS on 2008 R2 and using the 2008 R2 boot image you can inject drivers just by right clicking on the Boot Image and choosing Add Driver. Gosh I love 2008 R2

[parkham]

Thanks for the post stuffman. It really helped!