Is it possible to push out drivers (.inf, .cat et al) via GPO?

[Garacesh]

Any time I try finding this out, all I can find is information about printers, but it's not printer drivers I want to push out.

 

The Electronics department have special USB cables that they use for programming microcontrollers, USB-A-Male to 3.5mm-Male jack. The guys that make it nicely include an .exe to install the drivers but say this can only work if the computer you're installing it on has never ever had the cable attached, well, ours have, as he's attached the table and tried to install the drivers himself (He actually knows what he's doing, though, thankfully.)

 

Unfortunately the drivers he has are out of date and don't work on W10, so I've downloaded their latest ones for 7/8 and am going to give them a bash, but as mentioned, the .exe installer will apparently not work. Thankfully this company offer their drivers downloadable as core files (.inf, .cab, .dll, .sys, etcetera.)

 

Is there any way I can push these out via GPO?

[Steve21]

Can script it via BAT/PS etc. (Or another deployment method like SCCM if you have it)

 

Steve

[Garacesh]

Can script it via BAT/PS etc. (Or another deployment method like SCCM if you have it)

 

Steve

 

No SCCM here (it's on my to-do list, but it's a big list..) but if it's possible from a batch file, that would at least help. We'd be able to put it in as an optional Application with WDS.

 

If it matters, it's not just one file. Like other driver packages it's multiple files across multiple folders.

amd64


[indent]ftbusui.dll
ftcserco.dll
(Etc)[/indent]


i386


[indent]ftbusui.dll
ftcserco.dll
(Etc)[/indent]


static


[indent]amd64
[indent](Etc)[/indent]


i386


[indent](Etc)[/indent]

[/indent]
ftd2xx.h
ftdibus.cat
ftdibus.inf
(etc)

Edited June 23, 2016 by Garacesh

[Vasriel]

I did it with a .bat file as a startup script in Group Policy. Hosted the files on a file server in the school. The script will check to see if a file exists, if it doesn't then create file, copy drivers to PC and install drivers.

 

if exist C:\Temp\IntelNetworkDriverUpdatedv19-3.txt goto end

break>"C:\Temp\IntelNetworkDriverUpdatedv19-3.txt"

xcopy /y /q /s /i "%~dp0Drivers" "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3"

pnputil -i -a "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3\Winx32\e1c6232.inf"

pnputil -i -a "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3\Winx32\e1d6232.inf"

pnputil -i -a "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3\Winx32\e1e6232.inf"

pnputil -i -a "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3\Winx32\e1k6232.inf"

pnputil -i -a "C:\Temp\Intel Network Adapter Driver v19.3\Winx64\e1c62x64.inf"

:end

[Garacesh]

I did it with a .bat file as a startup script in Group Policy. Hosted the files on a file server in the school. The script will check to see if a file exists, if it doesn't then create file, copy drivers to PC and install drivers.

-snip-

 

You'll have to forgive me here, this is the first time I've ever really attempted something like this. What about the rest of the files? The subsequent dll, cab, etc? Looking at the .inf files with Notepad++, I'm seeing entries like the following:

[sourceDisksFiles.amd64]
ftdibus.sys = 1,amd64
ftbusui.dll = 1,amd64
ftd2xx64.dll = 1,amd64
ftd2xx.dll = 1,i386
FTLang.Dll = 1,amd64

 

I assume this to mean that the .inf is like a list of sorts that points to all the other files needed, and as such I only need to point the script at the .infs? Just wanting to double-check before I potentially balls things up

[Vasriel]

Yeah, the inf must point to the other files. The rest of the driver files are in the same folder as the .inf files.

[Garacesh]

[b]pnputil -i -a "\.ftdibus.inf"[/b]
Microsoft PnP Utility

Processing inf: ftdibus.inf
Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
Driver package added successfully.
Published name: oem74.inf

Total attempted: 1
Number successfully imported: 1

[b]pnputil -i -a "\.ftdiport.inf"[/b]
(Same info, success, etc)

 

This did, however, bring up the prompt to install the driver (and always trust software by that company).. I don't suppose there's any way to make it silent, is there? It halts the LiteTouch install until Install is pressed. /? says there is no silent/force/accept switch, though

[Arthur]

I don't suppose there's any way to make it silent, is there?

Install the certificate before you run pnputil.

[Garacesh]

Hmm.. I can't seem to find the certificate in certlm

[Norphy]

Have you tried DPInst?

[Garacesh]

Hmm. Worth looking into.

[Arthur]

I can't seem to find the certificate in certlm

You would need to extract the certificate from the drivers first, before you can import it into the TrustedPublishers certificate store.

 

Are you able to post a link to the drivers you are using? I might be able to help.

[Garacesh]

http://www.picaxe.com/downloads/axe027.zip

 

Baptism by fire with a lot of stuff, thanks to the W10 rollout.

[Arthur]

Thanks. I have attached the certificate you need. Save it to the same folder as your batch file, then add the line shown in red and try it again.

 

The prompt you were getting before shouldn't appear.

 

[color="#FF0000"]certutil.exe -f -addstore TrustedPublisher ".\FTDI.cer"[/color]
pnputil -i -a ".\ftdibus.inf"
pnputil -i -a ".\ftdiport.inf"

ftdi_cert.zip

[Garacesh]

Swish! \o/ That worked.

So, I presume I'm going to have to do this with other drivers at some point, where/how did you locate the certificate? I told my test machine to always trust drivers by that company but still couldn't find it...

[Arthur]

where/how did you locate the certificate?

I'll post some screenshots a bit later showing how I did it.

[Arthur]

I told my test machine to always trust drivers by that company but still couldn't find it.

I have just thought of a much faster way to extract the certificate. Use PowerShell!

 

$Driver = "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\axe027\ftdibus.cat"
$Certificate = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\FTDI.cer"

[system.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($Certificate, (Get-AuthenticodeSignature $Driver).SignerCertificate.Export([system.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509ContentType]::Cert))

 

When I trusted the certificate Windows placed it into the "Other People" certificate store.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Arthur

[ReadTheNetwork]

Can't you just write a script to copy to system32?

[Garacesh]

Hey @Arthur, sorry to bump again, but same issue has cropped up with another set of drivers, this time for some science stuff for detecting light, heat, etc.

 

Drivers are the same, ftdibus cat/.inf and ftdiport.cat/.inf (I'm guessing that's a standard thing for usb peripherals/COM ports?) so should just be able to do it the same way, but you never got round to posting about how you found the certificate

[Arthur]

you never got round to posting about how you found the certificate

I did. See post #17.

 

The other way is really long-winded. I could post this as well, but I may not have time until the weekend.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Arthur

[Garacesh]

Oh, derp! I was expecting pretty pictures haha. I must've glossed over that thinking it was a different method to install the drivers.

 

Don't I feel silly?