Device Drivers - Can you use Windows Update?

[cdwyer]

Hi guys,

 

So I'm having an absolute nightmare deploying drivers via SCCM, I appear to have done everything right but for some reason they just will not install.

 

If I go to device manager and tell the devices to update via Windows Update they go away and update and have the correct drivers so my question is, is there a way I can force the machines to automatically pull drivers from Windows Update after build? that way I don't have to worry about manually trying to apply the drivers.

 

Thanks!

[LukeRowberry]

Have you tried using Double Driver on the PC after Windows Update and adding those drivers to the deployment?

[cdwyer]

I used driver backup, copied all the drivers from a working build, created a driver package and assigned the build to the package but it fails every time, so i've told it to browse through the full directory of drivers in hope that it would find the right one but every time it installs the microsof basic display adapter and no audio driver, nightmare!

[Fazza]

I'm having an absolute nightmare deploying drivers via SCCM, I appear to have done everything right but for some reason they just will not install.

 

I had the same issue when I first started using SCCM (no idea if the later versions change this) so I now install all the drivers using a Silent Install switch by adding it to SCCM as a Program and then adding it to the Task Sequence - that way the chipset gets installed (dont think you can get that via Microsoft Updates) along with all the other drivers! I've been doing this for years now and the drivers always install properly without any issues!

 

[Fazza]

I'm having an absolute nightmare deploying drivers via SCCM, I appear to have done everything right but for some reason they just will not install.

 

I had the same issue when I first started using SCCM (no idea if the later versions change this) so I now install all the drivers using a Silent Install switch by adding it to SCCM as a Program and then adding it to the Task Sequence - that way the chipset gets installed (dont think you can get that via Microsoft Updates) along with all the other drivers! I've been doing this for years now and the drivers always install properly without any issues!

 

[cdwyer]

Thank you I will try this and let you know!

[cdwyer]

Thank you I will try this and let you know!

[cdwyer]

Hi, sorry, how did you achieve this exactly? create a package with the driver exe and in the command line field enter -s?

 

Thanks

[cdwyer]

Hi, sorry, how did you achieve this exactly? create a package with the driver exe and in the command line field enter -s?

 

Thanks

[Fazza]

Hi, sorry, how did you achieve this exactly? create a package with the driver exe and in the command line field enter -s?

 

Thanks

 

lol - if only it was as simple as that!

 

There's no standard in switches for installing silently - at least not in my experience! Even drivers from the same manufacturer use variations!

 

 

In the above screen grab you can see the Intel Chipset Driver for a Lenovo B50-80 uses the -s -norestart switches.

 

I always look for a 'no restart' option as I dont like the idea of a driver doing that during a task sequence.

 

What I do is open up a command prompt, browse to the drivers and look for the install program and then put -? or /? or -h or /h as a parameter and see if that brings up a list of the switches you can use with it.

 

For example with the above Chipset Driver for the Lenovo B50-80 the install file is called SetupChipset so at the command prompt I put SetupChipset.exe /? and it brings this up:

 

 

Sometimes the parameter is /qn where the qn=quiet with no dialog boxes and another parameter could be -norestart to stop it restarting.

 

 

In the above screen grab you can see that the BlueTooth driver for this particular laptop has different switches to the Chipset.

 

When it comes to parameters like this some drivers dont have a lot of error protection built in and expect the parameters to be entered in the case shown in the Help dialog bog in the order they appear. In the above example -s comes before -norestart so if you decide to put SetupChipset.exe -norestart -s or capitalise the -S then it may not work. So if in the help box it says -S then use a capital as the a lowercase -s may not work.

 

Here's an example of one of my Task Sequences:

 

 

As you can see I've put the drivers after .Net has been installed and before any additional software gets installed.

 

Hope that all makes sense!

 

I then add the Program to the task sequence and it installs them for me/us!

Edited March 14, 2017 by Fazza

[cdwyer]

Thanks you very much, am attempting this now. Do I need to put the path to the file in the 'data source' source folder or the 'startup folder'?

 

Thanks for all this so far!

[cdwyer]

I followed your instructions and managed to get this to work perfectly after 3 years of pain! Thank you so much, this way is so much more reliable.

[Fazza]

I followed your instructions and managed to get this to work perfectly after 3 years of pain! Thank you so much, this way is so much more reliable.

 

I tried for a few weeks of getting them to inject properly and then I wondered if you could treat a Driver install program as a 'Program' in SCCM (assuming there is a silent install option available) and it worked! I then stopped messing about trying to get the injected drivers to work (I even used DoubleDriver to extract already installed drivers but to no avail) and just installed the drivers with a silent install!

 

One thing to remember is that on some obscure drivers, the silent install option is not always clear, Google the name of your driver along with 'silent install' or go to the manufacturers website and search there in the installation documentation.