[MDT] Issue - After Deployment Driver Store is 30GB +

[DanArkless]

Hi all,

 

I've looked all over Edugeek and on MS tech forums but I'm unable to find out a solution. So I'll try and explain my issue here.

 

I've set up MDT 2013 and have been deploying Windows 7 and newly Windows 10 perfectly fine. That was until I noticed that my DriverStore folder on 'C' drive on all of my Windows 7 deployments were 30GB+. The steps I took to set up my Windows 7 deployment are as follows, and by doing this I thought MDT would only be injecting drivers which it needed.

 

- Imported all relevant drivers into MDT through Out of Box Drivers

- Captured my image after using sysprep and attaching an unattend file and imported it into MDT under OS

- Create a Task sequence using my Windows 7 wim

- (Task Sequence) Created a Profile to use within Out-of-Box drivers (Windows 7 x64) for example, and selected it

- (Task Sequence) Selected my newly created Profile within Apply Patches

- Updated Deployment Share - Completely regenerate the boot image

 

I have also created an up to date Boot image within the Deployment Service.

 

Please outline any faults that may be causing this or if I have missed a step, I'm sure I've included everything. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

Edited February 17, 2017 by DanArkless

[birchanger]

Well, the way I handled it was as follows:

 

- Set up a deployment share for your reference image. Do not add any drivers, unless you find you must have a mass-storage or network driver for your virtualization environment

- Perform a deploy and capture of the reference image on a VM

- Import the captured image into a different deployment share

- Import all drivers you need. Follow best practise by creating an organised driver folder structure, separating drivers by manufacturer and model

- Use selection profiles, preferably with DriverGroups, to set up your deployment to use only the drivers required for the target hardware based on runtime detection of Make and Model. See Michel Niehaus's excellent tutorials, e.g. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/itpro/windows/deploy/deploy-a-windows-10-image-using-mdt

 

Bob's your uncle. Only the necessary drivers will be installed on the machines you deploy to.

 

Neihaus gives ideas for determining what drivers you'll need. My approach tends to be trial and error. You're almost certain that most drivers are in Windows anyway, so just try out a deployment to each distinct piece of hardware you have then see what's missing. Download and add those drivers that are missing, or that you really need to update for some reason, then try again.

 

When using MDT I really can't recommend Johan Ardwidmark's Deployment Fundamental book series highly enough. They save a lot of time in the long run.

Edited February 17, 2017 by birchanger

[DMcCoy]

I suspect you have some Realtek sound drivers and "Install all drivers" in your selection profile under "inject drivers", rather than "install only matching drivers".

[DanArkless]

I've made a new profile with only a handful of drivers in, then I've only chosen that profile with "Install only matching drivers from the selected profile". It still seems to be installing all profiles as originally my driverstore folder was 60Gb+ and I've got to down to 30Gb with only 1 profile as before it was set to install all profiles for drivers and packages. The drivers that are in the specific folder were only driver for 1 PC totalling at probably no more than 400mb.

 

I can't for the life of me find out why its still insisting on pulling more than what I've specified.

 

Edit: Can I delete old profiles which I know we no longer use (old PC's) which members of the IT team set up a long time ago? To try and solve the issue.

Edited February 17, 2017 by DanArkless