[dlevens]

Hey guys,

Soooooo glad I found this forum. Some great stuff here. I am helping to update the ghosting process at a company I contracting for and have successfully condensed about 40 images down to 2.

We have one for XP and one for 2000 that works on all laptops, desktops, even hyper threaded boxes. My problem is I think chose a bad layout for drivers.

Currently I do the following:

C:\Drivers\Sysprep\

intelinf-2k
intelinf-xp
network
other
sound
video

C:\sysprep\

cvtarea.exe
deploy.chm
deploy.chw
factory.exe
i386
oformat.com
readme.txt
ref.chm
setupcl.exe
setupmgr.chm
setupmgr.exe
sysprep.exe
sysprep.inf
i386\$oem$
i386\$oem$\cmdlines.txt

What I do is build the RAW image on a box that defaults to the ACPI Uniprocessor PC HAL then before I sysprep I change the HAL to Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC and reboot then I sysprep.

This allows me to deploy to any hardware. After I deploy to newer hardware that can run the UNI HAL all I do in XP is rollback the hal and 3 seconds and reboot I am back to the UNI hal. And if it is a Multi CPU or hyperthread box as soon as I reboot after rolling back to the UNI Hal it auto detects and installs the MULTI Hal.

This is working great.

NOW for my issue. I am trying to find a way to handle all the driver issues. Right now we have a ton of older gateway systems as slow as 500Mhz, a ton of new ibm thinkcenters and netvistas as well as a ton of thinkpad laptops from T22 up to T41.

As you can see from my driver layout I was trying to put all of the sound drivers in sound and video in video but as you can imagine this is causing problems. I fix one system so it installs great but then another system using a similar but newer sound driver will fail.

I want to use only signed drivers and have all machines come up with all drivers installed and not ask to even click finish to complete a driver install.

What is the best practice for doing this? At the moment I am sorta stuck having to use sysprep and symantec ghost 8.

I could seperate all the drivers based on hardware, like e3400, T22, 8183 etc and dump all drivers like sound, video, network etc in the folder it belongs but then my oempnpdriverspath will be huge.

Any suggestions or pointers will be appreciated.

Dennis Levens

[Raja]

Hi Dennis

Try this;

Create unique driver folders for each hardware model with a common prefix and have all the folders available as part of the image in the root of C: drive. Copy all the driver files for each device (audio, video, network..etc) of each model to the root of each driver folder for that model.

Example:
D_e3400 - Copy all device drivers for e3400 to the root of this folder
D_T22 - Copy all device drivers for T22 to the root of this folder
D_8183 - Copy all device drivers for 8183 to the root of this folder

Have oempnpdriverspath set to C:\Drivers

Edit (create if you do not have one) the batch file which runs the sysprep.exe to add these line before the sysprep is executed.

Move C:\D_%1 C:\Drivers
For /F "Tokens=*" %%A IN ('Dir /B /AD /S C:\D_*') DO RD /S /Q %%A

Call the batch file with the hardware model as the argument so as to replace the value of %1 with that models driver folder.

Example:
If your batch file is called ABC.bat then run it as ABC.bat T22 for T22 model.

The batch file will first rename the C:\D_T22 folder to C:\Drivers folder and then delete all the other folders starting with D_ in the root of the C: drive.

Also do you realise that having installed all your apps on a FAT32 partition and then converting it to NTFS you have missed the opportunity to benefit from the default security settings these apps would have applied during their installation had the NTFS be available at the time of installation.

Regards

Raja

[dlevens]

Raja,

Thanks for the info. However, this would only work if we sysprep and create a seperate image for each hardware type. We are tying to avoid this. We want one image for all hardware types with all drivers in the oempnpdrivers path.

Dennis

[Raja]

Hi Dennise

This will work for "one image for all" solution. Could you point out where do you see this failing in your scheme of things so that I can assist you further. If I am guessing it right you are using ghost to dump the image after you have done the Sysprep. If true, then prepare your master image before the sysprep and integrate the above suggestion into your solution. I am hoping that you can take it on from here, otherwise feel free to write to me directly (rkohli@energy.com.au) and will provide you the detailed steps to accomplish what you want. Unless I am missing something, what you want is how I do my images so am confident of it working for your needs.

Hope to hear soon from you.

Cheers

Raja

[dlevens]

Raja,

To briefly explain I see a problem because the batch file will create a nice sysprep image only for that one hardware. Even though I would have all my drivers for all my hardware on the root of C when I run the batch file for say a Thinkpad laptop then I only end up with a sysprep image that I can deploy to thinkpad laptops. We are trying for 1 final sysprep image that works for all hardware. In the end we want 1 master image before sysprep and 1 final sysprep image that we can deploy to all hardware types.

Dennis

[Raja]

Dennise

I will try again to share my thought on the subject. With what I am suggesting you will have one master image only and no sysprep image. The solution involves a bit of scripting.

1. Have a computer build the way you want it to be.
2. Add the driver folders as discussed previously.
3. Enable the auto logon and have a script executed through RunOnce key
4. Shutdown the computer and take the image of it.
5. This image become your master image.

What will your script have?
1. Ability to auto detect the model and use that information to get the right drivers copied to C:\Drivers. (As discussed in the first reply). If you do not want to put the effort in working on the auto detect code then you can get the script to prompt you for the model name.
2. Execute Sysprep.exe with reboot option.

What will you see on ghosting the image on new PC?
1. On powering ON the PC, auto logon is executed followed by running of the script from RunOnce key.
2. PC restarts again as a result of sysprep command from the script.
3. On restart Mini setup wizard starts as per settings in Sysprep.inf.
Note: The sysprep.inf and cmdlines.txt could be customised for each model on the fly by the above discussed script.
4. PC reboots ready for user logon.

The concerns...
1. You need to have some knowledge on scripting(plenty of help available in forums and newsgroups)
2. At the first auto logon you will be seeing New Hardware Found wizard popping up, but is not a worry as Sysprep.exe will kick in soon enough and restart the PC.

I hope this all makes some sense so that you can benefit from this. If still not clear, ask me specific questions so that I can help further.

Cheers

Raja

[dlevens]

Raja,

That makes sense now. I do now finally see the benefit in that approach. As you mentioned my only concern would be the auto detect portion and the fact that the script kicks in a little late to have it come up clean without windows detecting and asking for drivers. I do see that the script would kick in and reboot to handle that though.

Right now my approach seems to be working and is very clean. I have finally solved a lot of the driver issues bumping into each other by keeping my 2000 drivers and XP drivers seperate. I was getting too greedy by trying to have one driver solution for both.

I have also discovered that many hardware types can be combined, for isntance I now have successfully built an IBM thinkpad driver folder for windows 2000 that covers all sound, video, modem, lan into one folder for model T20, T21, T22, T23, T30 and T41.

The benefit in this approach is there is no script needed for auto detect and no extra reboot. Plus the system logs in on first log in with all drivers installed and not one pop up for hardware. Very clean and all drivers are signed and certified.

I do appreciate all the time you have taken to respond to my questions, and I see from another thread you pointed me to the unattended guide. Very nice guide, so I will start working on my unattended CD to handel building our master images.

If I have questions on either approach you might here from me

Dennis