It comes to something when...

[LeMarchand]

it's just me, too. Luckily I had time to play around with WDS due to a few weeks with just "day to day" stuff and no major problems/changes. Took a while to get it working, but it's great not having to start from scratch with each machine. Now I just need to get as organised as some of the other people here who seem to have just one image that they can automagically get to load selected software on as needed. (I still have 3 different images for different usage scenarios).

[Pyroman]

I used to do it that way with XP but before I moved every machine over to Windows 7 in the summer I created one master image that pulls the required drivers and installs them after the image has been deployed. I now only have 2 images. One for full computers with all software installed and another for just admin machines such as office staff and the head etc just with a minimal amount of software like office etc...

It worked well and that image successfully deployed to 180 machines of all different shapes and sizes with very little fuss. Saved a lot of time too. Think it took me 2 weeks to get the image perfect though...

Does it pull the drivers automatically? I'm used to XP imaging so i'm doing it that way still, building one for each set of hardware. Do you mean that the one base image will go over multiple sets of hardware without tweaking or do you have to load the image with drivers for all hardware before you deploy?

[jamin100]

Does it pull the drivers automatically? I'm used to XP imaging so i'm doing it that way still, building one for each set of hardware. Do you mean that the one base image will go over multiple sets of hardware without tweaking or do you have to load the image with drivers for all hardware before you deploy?

Im on my own too

I have 1 main image with all the drivers for all the machines built into the image, thenit looks at the hardware and then pulls the required drivers down. It takes a bit of work but I download all the drivers from driverpacks.net and then script it so that after the image it extracts all of the drivers and then installs the ones the machine needs. After the install it deletes all the unused drivers off the machine. Adds about 3GB to the image if i remember but saves a lot of time in the long run.

I think out of 180 machines, I had about 5 where I had to install the wireless drivers and that was it. I'll defiantly be doing the same again next summer.

[Pyroman]

Im on my own too

I have 1 main image with all the drivers for all the machines built into the image, thenit looks at the hardware and then pulls the required drivers down. It takes a bit of work but I download all the drivers from driverpacks.net and then script it so that after the image it extracts all of the drivers and then installs the ones the machine needs. After the install it deletes all the unused drivers off the machine. Adds about 3GB to the image if i remember but saves a lot of time in the long run.

I think out of 180 machines, I had about 5 where I had to install the wireless drivers and that was it. I'll defiantly be doing the same again next summer.

How do you go about scripting that then? Do you have a guide somewhere?

[tb2571989]

I'll give major Kudos to Novatech for this - if you buy a machine from them you can choose to have it blank, or just Windows installed, no extra crapware.

[jamin100]

How do you go about scripting that then? Do you have a guide somewhere?

This is what I pulled from the tinterwebz somewhere (think it was from the fog boards) and kept it in my notes. I create the image on a virtual machine that i snapshot along the way so that I can always go back a few steps should I need too

Step 8: Drivers- SAD2


This topic is one that will no doubt cause some to interject with their own way of doing drivers. That's fine, however I spent quite some time trying to find the best way to inject drivers to win 7 installs. Most ways are clumsy and require more work than it's worth. I've settled on this path and it works great for our situation, across any machine.
Essentially after install on first logon, the "setupcomplete.cmd" script will call the "SAD2" driver tool to run. The SAD2 driver tool was made by community members of the driverpacks.net forums.
Stand Alone Driverpack utility for all OS (XP, 2k3, 2k8, Vista, Win7) (Page 1) - Windows 7 tools - DriverPacks.net Forum
You can download it from the above forum link. I'm using version 111118.

You need to create and then save the folder to:
C:\Drivers
or else you need to adjust the setupcomplete.cmd script in step 7 to where you place the tool.

Now for the drivers you need to go to driverpacks.net:
Latest DriverPacks | DriverPacks.net
And download all of the packs you want for win 7/vista x64. Do the same for x86 vista/7.
Once you have downloaded the driver packs (you don't need to extract them), place them in the respective folders for each image:

So in the x64 image you only put the 64 bit drivers into the x64 folder, and for the x86 image you only put the 32bit drivers into the x86 folder. This will add only approx 1gb to the final size of the OS partition if you use all packs. We only use core driver packs.

I made a few changes to the "DP_Install_Tool" to make it fully unattended, and also so that it restarts after the drivers have been installed, and deletes the driver packs from the image. I will attach the modified tool to the original post in this thread, so you can just download and replace it in your SAD2 folder, but essentially I just removed the prompt that asks you if you want to proceed, and removed and pauses after that also. Then I just added: **I have attached the modified DPinstall tool, but I had to change it to a .txt in order to upload to this post. You will need to modify the file extension back to .cmd.

::::::::::::::::::
shutdown -r -c "Drivers Installed! Machine will now restart.."
START C:\Drivers\SAD2-111118\RemoveD.cmd
EXIT
::::::::::::::::

..to reboot the machine after drivers have installed, and delete the drivers. You will need to create a "RemoveD.cmd" script in the location as specified above. The SAD2 tool creates a folder called "D" in the C:\ root , so I added this script to both delete the "D" folder, and the drivers to clear up some room. The .cmd script is below:
:::::::::::::::::::::::
 @echo OFF

rd /s/q C:\D

DEL /F /S /Q /A "C:\Drivers\SAD2-111118"

rd /s/q C:\Drivers\SAD2-111118

EXIT
:::::::::::::::::::::::

I suggest creating another snapshot and testing that the tool runs correctly. You can also try the tool out on a physical machine to make sure it is working for you. I have fully tested this and it works every time. This is also the reason why it's good to have a x86 version of your image, because as I mentioned although even an old P4 processor can handle x64 OS, if you try to inject x64 drivers it can cause big problems. So I suggest if the machine you are imaging is less than 12-24 months old, then go for x64, if it is any older then use x86. Really the only reason you might want x64 is for the machine to use more than 4gb of ram, and most machines that have 4+gb ram are less than 24 mths old anyway.

[sted]

you could just use mdt set up a base image with whatever you want on a vm. Capture it. Add drivers to mdt and fire it out to target pcs

[Earthling]

We do that (or used to as we don't use them anymore) with Dell Computers - all unboxed, hdds formatted - nice image on & no garbage. Now we do it with everything that comes through the door. I wish manufacturers could appreciate that all we want is a machine with just the OS on and nothing else.

Same here. No 'if's', no 'but's, hard drive out of the box and onto the Imagemasster. Cup of coffee, 15 minutes, eight pc's done. Rinse and repeat.

[mattianuk]

I'll give major Kudos to Novatech for this - if you buy a machine from them you can choose to have it blank, or just Windows installed, no extra crapware.

Agree, I use them for clients machines as well as at work, and they literally come with Windows 7 + MSE and that is it.

I still wipe them to our image through FOG, but that is because it joins to domain etc and we only buy machines with SSDs - so its a LOT quicker to do an install. (5 mins per machine from unboxing to installing MSIs)