KACE Driver packs, do they still exist? And Symbolic links for the post install drivers folder
Background: We are moving away from our dell computers to become a Lenovo shop, and while Lenovo offers a driver pack for their as bundles for entire model lines and does not sort them by model number, for the ThinkPad T430, T430i, T430s, T430si, T530, T530i, W530 these all come in 1 combined driver pack that is 1.5 gigs so i really don't want to duplicate it when for the T430s alone we have 6 diffferent model numbers.
Question 1: Do the Kace driver packs that were around for 3.2 still exist/work/continue to be updated?
Question 2: Is it possible to create 1 directory and create symbolic (or hard) links to the various model numbers so we don't have 6+ copies of the same drivers.
Thanks for your help!
Answers (1)
If you sysprep the images you can prestage the drivers needed in c:\windows\inf
http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/creating-a-windows-7-sysprep-image-without-having-to-install-any-drivers-at-post-install-tasks
Comments:
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That is a good point, though i should have mentioned i am using scripted installations for this task. While i could update the WIM to accomplish a similar task, it seems like there should be a better way of doing this. - jlbob 11 years ago
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you should be able to upload the drivers to the k2000 and use the driver post install feed to do this. I never had good luck with this and went to this method.
Another thing you can try is create midlevel task for the the deployments that copy the file to this area prior to reboot and hardware discovery - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago-
I do currently have them in the post_install folder, though i prefer to upload the manually. The only issue is with the Lenovo drivers i have 5+ different models that represent the model T430. They all use the same drivers so with the way KACE is designed to search based off of the model number i would need to create 5+ directories to hold the drivers. That wouldn't be a huge issue but each folder uses 1.5 gigs of space and i would hope to find a better solution that won't use 5X the amount of space as it should.
If i did put in a ticket with KACE so if i dont get a reasonable response i will give your suggestion of creating a midlevel task a shot. - jlbob 11 years ago
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We're a Lenovo shop also. When we get a newer model in I image it with my base image to see what all drivers are needed. You might luck out on some models, and not need all. I do agree that uploading them all to one directory would be great.
As far as the driver packs the latest can be found here. It works for the majority of mine. For all others I use the driver harvesting tool.
http://www.kace.com/support/resources/kb/article/kbe-driver-pack-boot-environments - dugullett 11 years ago -
I'll +1 on this suggestion, also you could inject the drivers into your WIM with Dism - nheyne 11 years ago
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Very true and i had thought about that but, i would like to avoid modifying the wim if at all possible. - jlbob 11 years ago
