Solved Windows 8.1 SYSPREP - Drivers installation problem (help)

OhBobSaget

New Member
Messages
3
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone here was able to successfully create a sysprep image of Windows 8.1 that have all the required drivers stored on a local folder ex. C:\Drivers

It seems that the way that sysprep is installing the drivers with Windows 8.1 changed compared to Windows 7...

The unattend.xml drivers part does not seem to apply now...

Code:
<settings pass="offlineServicing">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DriverPaths>
                <PathAndCredentials wcm:keyValue="76244e4a" wcm:action="add">
                    <Path>C:\Drivers\</Path>
                </PathAndCredentials>
            </DriverPaths>
        </component>
</settings>

I don't want to use MDT or SCCM ( i use Novell Zenworks to deploy OS images )

Windows 7 also had some sort of problem with the drivers installation but i was able to bypass it by adding an entry in the registry at the sysprep seal phase ( not before because the audit mode would install the drivers and we don't want that).

so we had to modify this DevicePath to add "C:\Drivers;%SystemRoot%\inf"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DevicePath]

Thank you for your input ! :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
if you are deploying images - I must assume your are mounting and prepping your images before you deploy them....

Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:c:\temp\Install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:c:\temp\offline

Dism /Image:c:\temp\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:c:\Drivers /Recurse

Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:c:\temp\offline /Commit

you would have to change to point to your install.wim and offline image

Then I usually add this step to cleanup and reduce the size of the install.wim

Code:
Dism /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:c:\temp\install.wim /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:c:\temp\install.new.wim /CheckIntegrity
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
I am not currently using this method to update the image.
I am not to much into this method of Adding drivers (DISM /Add-Driver) because i find it more difficult to deal with obsolete drivers that you want to remove but don't know if it is still there or not...

I put the drivers folder on the local hard drive ex. C:\Drivers then configure all OS properties and settings and then seal the image with sysprep.

I then take a snapshot of this state with Novell Zenworks Imaging and after i can deploy this hard disk image to other machines that will finish the sysprep phase when booting.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Just letting you know guys that someone helped me on another forum to get the drivers to install. Here's the answer, if it can help others :
DpInst Method

Basically using the DPInst.exe (provided in the Windows Drivers Kit )and DPInst.xml file i was able to call DPInst within the Specialize phase asking it to install all drivers from a specified drivers folder ex. C:\Drivers
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
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