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Windows 7 Enterprise Imaging - remote driver retrieval failure

Unanswered Windows 7 Enterprise Imaging - remote driver retrieval failure

  • Thursday, February 21, 2013 5:13 AM
     
     
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    I've created a Windows 7 Enterprise image with an “unattend.xml” answer file generated with WAIK. It's sysprepped and packaged with Symantec Ghost, everything works with the exception of the retrieval and installation of remotely cached drivers during the setup. During the image's installation, WinPE runs in the first setup phase correlating to, I believe, the “Windows PE” section of the “unattend.xml” file; so, in an attempt to supply the proper drivers to the WinPE used during that initial boot-up, I've added WinPE-3.0 drivers (supplied by Dell) associated with my hardware to both indices of "boot.wim" and the "winPE.wim" in the hidden partition because I don’t know how “windeploy.exe” initiates the setup, interacts with “Unattend.xml” or where it gets the "Windows PE" file . I'm not sure where to put the "boot.wim" and it may be irrelevant, or I may need to apply additional processes that I am not aware of yet. The second potential problem could be my understanding and/or application of the "Unattend.xml" file. I've applied the UNC path and credentials to the "Windows PE", "OffLine Servicing", and "Audit System" sections of the “Unattend.xml”. I figured that the drivers for Windows 7 would be downloaded through the UNC path supplied by the "Windows PE" section of the “Unattend.xml” during the "initial boot-up" of the image. So far, I haven't had any luck. Does anyone know how to accomplish the retrieval and installation of remotely cached drivers during an image’s setup?

     

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  • Friday, February 22, 2013 7:59 AM
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    Hi,


    Please verify that you have validated the answer file is in WISM, also, I would like to share the following articles:


    Walkthrough: Build an Answer File for BIOS-based Computers

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744509(v=WS.10).aspx


    Create an Answer File

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-aik-create-an-answer-file.aspx


    Thanks,

    Vincent Wang
    TechNet Community Support

     
  • Saturday, February 23, 2013 3:55 AM
     
     
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    Thank you Vincent. My Answer file validates, but I saw a couple of items in the video that I may wish to include in my answer file. I think some of the functionality of my answer file may be negated by my use of Symantec Ghost  instead of SCCM (like the partitioning function). I'm still don't know how to make the installation automatically search for and retrieve driver files kept externally to the computer, provided that the image has an appropriate NIC driver, and/or retrieve these files from a thumb drive if the aforementioned NIC driver is absent. Is there any way to trigger an automatic hardware scan and download of corresponding drivers over the network?

    Do these drivers need to be in a particular format? Digitally signed? I've been using Dell OEM drivers that were either copied from a factory loaded computer or downloaded from the Dell support website and extracted. All drivers were placed on a network server folder (i.e \\server\Drivers\Audio\R12434) for each driver.

    Do any of the configuration passes get skipped if the image is loaded to a computer using Symantec Ghost instead of Microsoft SCCM.

    Glen


    • Edited by OldMopar71 Sunday, February 24, 2013 5:27 AM
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