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How do you get your driver packs?

Вопрос How do you get your driver packs?

  • Friday, September 21, 2012 8:53 AM
     
     
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    We have a corporate estate comprising of a large number of different models of computer (about 20 models over 5 manufacturers, laptop, desktop, tablet...). How does everyone out there get driver packs for importing into MDT? I have been using DoubleDriver after building a test machine and then manually installing the devices, but have encountered situations where only part of the driver is copied and the device doesn't get full functionality post deployment. Is there a better way? What about where an OEM doesn't provide a streamlined way of getting all the drivers you need. (I'm looking at you Toshiba.) HP, Lenovo and even Fujitsu Siemens seem pretty good about being able to update automatically. Is this a pain point we just need to deal with? 
     

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  • Sunday, September 23, 2012 4:20 PM
     
     
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    Hi,

    In the case where the manufacturer doesn't supply an easy method to get all drivers in 1 package for a specific model, you'll have to resort to downloading the drivers manually. I never liked using tools that export the drivers that are installed on the system in order to make my own driver package.

    Some drivers, will sometimes need to be installed as software (instead of importing them into the out-of-box-drivers container) in order to function properly. So keep that in mind when something doesn't work right away, see if there's an installer available in the package and try to install the driver that way to see if it works correctly then.

    I personally don't like to download every driver that is available for a specific model, so I only download drivers that for example are not included with Windows by default and drivers that provide additional functionality over the Windows built-in drivers.

    Kind regards,

    Stephan Schwarz

    If one of these posts answered your question or issue, please click on "Mark as answer".

    My Blog | Twitter: @Schwarz_Stephan | MCTS, MCITP, MCSA, MCC-2011.
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  • Sunday, September 23, 2012 7:26 PM
     
     
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    unfortunately, manufacturers do not see eye to eye with deployment people.

    IMHO, Dell shines in this area and the same goes for HP, which as of late started providing Driver Packages per model, which makes it quite easy although I also like their SSM (system software Manager)and softpaq.

    Lenovo is behind in this area, so I use their updater, build a share, extract only the drivers, import them to a Lenovo directory in MDT and point the TS to their repo as well as use their thininstaller later in the TS to get the rest . So as you can tell, it is consistently inconstant, and many places now understand that streamlining on hardware can save time, efforts an money. I am in the process of writing a manual for a client, so hopefully I will be done one day and can share it here...

    See if this can help shed some light, http://www.deployvista.com/Default.aspx?tabid=78&EntryID=132

     
  • Wednesday, October 10, 2012 10:59 AM
     
     
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    Yeah, sounds like what I've been doing. I was just throwing the question out there. I get by ok either using packs or downloading individulal drivers from OEMs. Currently we use Lenovo and HP as our base machines, but that can change. I agree with what you are saying about the vendors and their support, I have to say that Toshiba was by the worst for getting usable drivers, but they have started an FTP site that you can get packs for the newer models.