after deploying image - no network driver

[george1421]

@robertkwild said in after deploying image - no network driver:

windows driver packs are different from the winPE drivers

Yes they are.

WinPE drivers are used during OOBE before the first reboot. This is when the winpe environment is running. After the first reboot the full windows OS is running each having their own driver space.

For me when I build the golden image, I will preload the winpe drivers into the system. Then sysprep and capture the image. So when the image is first deploy to a target computer it has the drivers needed for disk and network to get started, the rest will come with the full driver pack later.

[robertkwild]

@george1421 so basically instead of syspreping a standard windows OS, you sysprep a winPE ?

heres the structure i got from extracting that CAB file

7204-WIN10-A05-CJ9XY\7204\Win10\x64

do i need to create a folder called

7204-WIN10-A05-CJ9XY or will 7204 do?

and you say i get the model info from the web GUI when it does an inventory of the system

[george1421]

@robertkwild said in after deploying image - no network driver:

basically instead of syspreping a standard windows OS, you sysprep a winPE ?

I’m sysprepping a full system that has the windows pe drivers preloaded. This step may not be necessary now days since windows 10 does a good job of having the common hardware drivers on board.

7204-WIN10-A05-CJ9XY\7204\Win10\x64

This is the dell part you can discard: 7204-WIN10-A05-CJ9XY
This part is the bit you need: 7204\Win10\x64

Now below the x64 directory in the dell cab you will see a bunch of directories with maybe dell part codes or what ever, those are the drivers.

That 7204\Win10\x64 directory will be copied in full to the target computer in c:\drivers directory. I should point out the parent driver directory 7204 is actually the model number of the computer that is built into SMBIOS. You may have to take a target computer and put it into debug mode to pull the smbios name. On dells the parent driver directory (i.e. 7204) is the model number queried by smbios (most of the time).

[robertkwild]

@george1421 This step may not be necessary now days since windows 10 does a good job of having the common hardware drivers on board.

That’s what I thought but obviously when deploying a syspreped windows image back on this hardware it doesn’t have the Intel NIC driver

That 7204\Win10\x64 directory will be copied in full to the target computer in c:\drivers directory

So if it finds the compatible NIC driver in c:\drivers, will it install the driver or will I have to manually install the driver

[george1421]

@robertkwild said in after deploying image - no network driver:

So if it finds the compatible NIC driver in c:\drivers, will it install the driver or will I have to manually install the driver

Just to be clear, FOS (engine that images the computer) is linux based. It can not step into Windows to do things. What it can do is leave behind bits that windows can use during oobe/winsetup. So what the post install script will do is copy the hardware specific drivers from the FOG server to the target computer into the C:\Drivers folder.

Now when windows is running then you run the command to load all of the drivers in a specific directory into windows.

In that post install script tutorial you will see this command that you need to insert into the setupcomplete.cmd batch file.

pnputil.exe /add-driver "C:\Drivers\*.inf" /subdirs /install

The pnputil.exe program will search c:\drivers (or whatever path you define) and any subfolders for windows drivers and inject them into windows.

[robertkwild]

@george1421 So make a batch file when I’m in the windows desktop after the oobe generalise stage, call it

setupcomplete.cmd

And put

pnputil.exe /add-driver “C:\Drivers*.inf” /subdirs /install

Or I could just run that command instead

[george1421]

@robertkwild Yes and yes The setupcomplete.cmd is a windows thing, where winsetup will automatically call that batch file at the end of oobe and just before the login prompt is displayed. It is used for the lite touch method of image deployment. Google that file name to find out the details and its location.

Or just create the batch file and leave it on the administrators desktop and you can manually run it. It doesn’t need to be called setupcomplete.cmd that is only for the unattended install. In my case Once I start FOG’s image deployment I don’t touch the computer until its finished and ready to move to the users work location. It is totally touchless once fog imaging has started.

[robertkwild]

@george1421 is there any way to auto call that batch file after the oobe generalise has finished

bear in mind im not using an unattended.xml answer file

Ok I save it here

%WINDIR%\Setup\Scripts\SetupComplete.cmd

In that setup complete CMD it’s

pnputil.exe /add-driver “C:\Drivers*.inf” /subdirs /install

But how do I get fog to dump the script in there in the first place

[george1421]

@robertkwild AFAIK the unattend.xml file and the setupcomplete.cmd files are not connected they can be used independently of each other. I believe the setupcomplete.cmd is a function of sysprep and not unattend.xml. But I can say I use both so I’ve never tried using one without the other.

[robertkwild]

@george1421 ok i feel this won’t work for me as when I captured the image I ran a sysprep without an unattended answer file, so I fear I’m going to have to run the sysprep again this time specifying an answer file

As how do I get Windows or fog to run the script after my oobe generalise

i mean this script

SetupComplete.cmd

pnputil.exe /add-driver “C:\Drivers*.inf” /subdirs /install

[robertkwild]

great thanks @george1421 i understand now, basically to do this right, you need to sysprep using an unattended xml file which i dont do, so best case scenario is i can just leave the drivers there and install once im on the desktop,

thanks again george