K2000 question about installing drivers
Hi, I have asked about drivers before but I want a clean slate and to make this as simple as possible:
We have 10-15 different HP models on top of our 4 or so Dell models. You can see then, that installing drivers with individual tasks is not feasible as I'd have 20-30 different deployment jobs once you include XP as well. Therefore I really need KACE to install drivers at time of build, after I've put the drivers into the drivers_postinstall folder. So:
1) I have a base OS image (a WIM, not a K-Image) of Windows 7
2) For this example I have a Dell T5500 and the driver feed has put the drivers into the correct folder, automatically after downloading from Dell.
3) Currently when deploying the image, Video and Sound drivers do not install.
How do I get the drivers to be installed as part of the build. I know about Driver_feed_mid_task but I have been 100% unsuccessful in getting that to work, so if you're going to help me out here, please detail everything step by step. if I need to download something, tell me what and where it is and then how I handle it once I have it downloaded.
I have got my head around everything KACE has to offer except drivers and it's something I really need to work. Anyone who can help me here would be the best person ever!
Thanks.
Answers (3)
Is the driver feed mid-task not working at all, or is it not just installing some drivers? Make sure you are calling the bat in your mid-task. I overlooked that, and it did not work.
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Hi there, it appears not to work at all. So I re-build the KBE once the drivers have been added to the postinstall folder and I then have a post install task (application, KBE Environment) where I have uploaded the driver_feed_tasks.zip download as a zip, then in the command line I put "call driver_feed_mid_task.bat" without the quotes. As no drivers install, I assume it's not working at all. Is any other pre or post installation task required? - twit 12 years ago
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Ok.... the "driver_feed_tasks" folder that includes the .bat file and the two exe's all named driver_feed_mid_task (one x64) should be zipped and set as a mid level task. I have this set to my last midlevel task. This is set using the same command line you are currently using "call driver_feed_mid_task.bat".
There is a seperate "install_drivers.exe" included in the download. This should be your post install task. I have this set as the first task (shouldn't really matter I like to just get it out of the way). I'm using the command line "install_drivers.exe" (w/o quotes). - dugullett 12 years ago
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Hi mate, I appreciate your comments here and to me it doesn't seem that complicated but it just doesn't work for me. Inside the zip file I have driver_feed_mid_task.bat and the 2 exe's. That's uploaded to KACE as a post-install (KBE Environment) task with the command call driver_feed_mid_task.bat and I then create a post-install (windows environment) task, uploading install_drivers.exe and using the same command line, install_drivers.exe. Nothing happens and I don't get why. - twit 12 years ago
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More info: If I change driver feed mid task to a post installation task (ie running in the Windows environment) it gives the debug prompt. First error title: No Driver directory found, contents of error: 10. 2nd error title: debug, error contents: No files were copied. - twit 12 years ago
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What does your K2 folder structure look like? \\k2\drivers_postinstall\"model"\windows_7_x64\"machine"\"drivers"? - dugullett 12 years ago
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Hi, yes it follows that structure. I don't want to get sidetracked but I will point out that the name of the "machine" that the Dell Driver feed automatically created is "t5500" however if you use the vbs script to get the model, it's called "WorkStationT5500" or even "Precision_WorkStation_T5500__". How can I trust it when it doesn't even follow it's own naming convention? - twit 12 years ago
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I would follow whatever "model_report.exe" outputs. This is included in the download. - dugullett 12 years ago
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when using the driverfeed workaround use model_report.exe with the download. If using an SI with 3.4, then you use the vb script in drivers_postinstall\feed_tools.
Corey
Lead L3 Enterprise Solutions Engineer, K2000
If my response was helpful, please rate it! - cserrins 12 years ago
With a windows 7 syspreped image I can found a method that has not failed yet. I have only 2 admin images, one 32bit and one 64bit and one base 32bit academic image. I discovered by placing any missing drivers I have to install post sysprep back on my master machine in the windows\inf structure that model computer will then find the driver by itself next time.
Under windows\inf I created on subdirectory called tmccdrivers and then created subdirectories for each model. I put only the drivers I had to post install in here to keep it's size down. so under most of the models I have audio, video. then some I need mei heci tpm. I even have 10 models of laptops this works for.
currently my images suppport 18 pc/laptop models from gateway, dell, hp and lenovo. Now when we get a new model staff deploy's a image to it. They find the missing drivers and place them on a share named imagedrivers by model\type directories. I have a midlevel task that copies this directory structure to c:\windows\inf\tmccdrivers. They deploy the image again to that model and the drivers are found without me having to create a new master immediatly. When I update the master (usually monthly) I move the drivers from the share to the master to save copy time during imaging.
Once I did have to copy the drivers for a video card from the temp folder vs the install folder, something to do with compressed files if I remember.
Because our master is hardware independant I now base all my images on software/licensing and they work in any classroom even if all the machines are not the same model.
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Hi, I'll look into this as an option, thanks. Are you simply using a file compression program like 7zip to extract the contents of the driver exe file to the Windows\inf\tmccdrivers\subfolder directory? Just so I'm clear on exactly which files you are copying to these folders. Cheers. - twit 12 years ago
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It has taken a while to trim my directory to the minimum. It seems the video drivers usualy requuire most of files where most other devices I can get away with just keeping the driver subdirectories and deleting the other parts. - SMal.tmcc 12 years ago
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Sorry, also during my testing I'm not bothering to sysprep the machine until I know everything works. I.e. I'm just capturing the base OS and it really doesn't contain any personalisation for my company yet. Does sysprep have any influence on whether or not your method will work for me? I can't see why sysprep is needed to make it detect and install drivers? - twit 12 years ago
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I answered the question about sysprep myself - it's needed :) I tip for you as you've been so helpful to me (you might already do this but just in case). I wouldn't want so much space being used up by the drivers folder we create in C:\Windows\Inf so I've created a post install task which deletes that folder. The idea being once the OS is built, the drivers are installed and that folder is no longer needed.
The command - rd /s /q "full path of folder" Quotes needed. - twit 12 years ago -
...and after extracting all my driver exe's to the windows\inf folder, I've got 14gb worth of drivers for Win7 and 20gb worth for XP that would need to be part of the image. What size are your images? I can't afford for them to be this big, and this is without applications. - twit 12 years ago
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I do leave them on the image, I have 3 gig of extra files (7,186) in my inf\tmccdrivers. My current academic image is 34 gig on the drive, 12 gig as a WIM. admin is 15 gig, 8 as Wim. Our minimum drive size is 80 gig and will be 120 gig fall 2013. Using the K2000 and wim imaging 1 staff member can image a room in a lttle over an hour from start to finish, the deployment is about 40 - 55 minutes depending on how many rooms are going. It takes about 25 minutes for an admin image to deploy. I agree you really do not have much use for them afterwards so you can create a task to delete them. - SMal.tmcc 12 years ago
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Hi again, so this method of yours still seems to be the winner but what about XP. Do you do this for XP because it doesn't seem to work like it does on Windows 7.
Thanks. - twit 12 years ago -
When were deploying XP I was using ZEN so I did things a little different. I had a master for each model of computer and used newsid and imaged only to the same model. - SMal.tmcc 12 years ago
I have just downloaded the driver and software,doesn't it usually goes on and installs the driver and software, but it doesn't. What could I be doing wrong,I must tell you That I an not very computer wise.Regards Rod Cusack.
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Could you re-post this as a new question and give us a little more detail to your OS, driver and situation. Sounds like a slightly different situation. - SMal.tmcc 12 years ago
