[mattffrost]

In windows xp for the unattended.txt file you could specify a OEMPnpDriver path like this:

[unattended]
Hibernation = no
UnattendMode = FullUnattended
DUDisable = Yes
TargetPath = \WINDOWS
OEMPnPDriversPath = "drv\ws670\Audio\Internal\SMAXWDM\SE;drv\ws670\Audio\Internal\SMAXWDM\W2K_XP;drv\ws670\Audio\SB\Audigy2;drv\ws670\Audio\SB\Audigy2\Winxxinf;drv\ws670\Keyboard\SmartCrd;drv\ws670\Keyboard\SmartCrd\DIAGNOSTICS;drv\ws670\Modem;drv\ws670\Mouse\Logitech;drv\ws670\Mouse\Logitech\Win2K_XP;drv\ws670\Mouse\Logitech\Win2K_XP\clean;drv\ws670\NIC\WinXP;drv\ws670\SATA;drv\ws670\SCSIRAID\Adaptec\PERC320;drv\ws670\SCSIRAID\Adaptec\U320\HostRAID;drv\ws670\SCSIRAID\Adaptec\U320\RAID_0_1;drv\ws670\Video\ATI\FireGL\V3100\Driver\2KXP_INF;drv\ws670\Video\nVidia\Quadro\FX1300;drv\ws670\Video\nVidia\Quadro\FX3400;drv\ws670\Video\nVidia\Quadro\NVS280"
DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
OemSkipEula = Yes
UnattendSwitch = Yes
OemPreinstall = Yes

It gave you the option to specify many different drivers because for example a dell can come with many different video drivers and its nice to throw all the drivers in one location and let the pnp technology of windows pick the correct driver. We never had any problems with this and it made driver management very simple.

In Windows vista under the Windows AIK chm I found the following verbage:

The previous method of using OEMPnPDriverPath as a mechanism to add device drivers to Windows is not supported in Windows Vista. You must add device drivers to your answer file by using Package Manager, or during Windows Setup.


As fare as I can tell there are now only three ways to add drivers to Windows Vista not including $OEM$, which are

Add Device Drivers to an Offline Windows Image

Add Device Drivers During Windows Setup, witch include two methods of:

Add a device driver during Windows PE
Add a device driver during audit mode


The problem is all of these methods add all found drivers to the driver store. I am getting inconsistent results of incorrect drivers being installed for some machines especially some older ones.

Does anyone have a comments of why the OEMPnPDriverPath in the unattend.txt was taken away and is there something in vista that is simliar to this without using offline stuff.

Matt

[cluberti]

Well, I can't say for sure why it was removed, but I do believe that because there is no such thing as a Windows installation anymore (everything comes from an image, even if it's just the base image now), that the only way currently to do it is to add them the above way. However, you could still populate the DevicePath value found in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion that the OEMPnPDriversPath value modified, but I've not tried it to see what would happen if that was modified in an image and then ximage'd back up and redeployed. I think it might work though, if you create all of the values you need in DevicePath and then dropped the drivers in as necessary to your images.

[FireGeier]

cluberti, on Jan 5 2007, 05:41 AM, said:

...
However, you could still populate the DevicePath value found in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion that the OEMPnPDriversPath value modified, but I've not tried it to see what would happen if that was modified in an image and then ximage'd back up and redeployed.
...

Isn't this the same like using DriverPaths under Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE or did I missunderstood something?

I ask cause these settings are only be executed through audit mode again and than all drivers from setted location will be copied into the image again.

Seems to me, that there is no solution to install drivers from a different location wo copying everything to driver store.

Martin