Drivers

Guys do you know of a way to easily implement drivers into a Windows image? I know tools such as Dism exist and MDT. My coworkers use driver pack solutions which has caused issues with machines freezing. I pointed this issue out months ago to be ignored they then went ahead and setup 50 machines which all have freezing issues because of driver pack solutions.

I then suggested setting up one machine and using clonezilla to mass scale deploy similar machines. I was shot down and was told cloning is unreliable? Although I have used this tool numerous times with no issues.....

How do you guys deal with images and drivers on different hardware? I have a Windows 7 base image I can install to any hardware with all updates implemented.....

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TheFORCE

Use SCCM.

Moon Child

ally_uk wrote: »

Guys do you know of a way to easily implement drivers into a Windows image? I know tools such as Dism exist and MDT. My coworkers use driver pack solutions which has caused issues with machines freezing. I pointed this issue out months ago to be ignored they then went ahead and setup 50 machines which all have freezing issues because of driver pack solutions.

I then suggested setting up one machine and using clonezilla to mass scale deploy similar machines. I was shot down and was told cloning is unreliable? Although I have used this tool numerous times with no issues.....

How do you guys deal with images and drivers on different hardware? I have a Windows 7 base image I can install to any hardware with all updates implemented.....

For the windows certifications I used homemade labs at home at for the certs they taught me to use SCCM. I found it pretty easy.

There is commercial software that can do this too. When I worked as a security guard for a few years I would talk to the head IT guy there what he would do for things like this. They didn't use DISM or SCCM but commercial software that made things much easier for them to do things like this.

Nik 99

Is SCCM covered in the MCSA server 12 / 16? I don't recall anything about it and I've been studying for the 410.

@Ally_UK Your co-workers sound like buggers mate =P

UncleB

Nik 99 wrote: »

Is SCCM covered in the MCSA server 12 / 16?

It has its own cert: Exam 70-243: Administering and Deploying System Center

We use it to deploy hundreds of laptops with lots of driver issues (Microsoft Surfaces) and it works well - plenty of little niggles down to it being a bit of a bag of spanners, but it works well enough for the job in hand.

If the muppets shooting down your cloning suggestion outrank you then you will have to suck it up, but otherwise put together a proposal, test it in your own time if you can and give it to your manager, bypassing the aforementioned muppet and let them make a call.

The key to getting this is right is a rigorous test plan where you build a computer, test all the key apps using a test matrix and make sure this covers the situations where the drivers freeze normally - if it works fine when cloning then you have a workaround. Test multiple times using different computers and if there are no issues, you have a scalable solution for now.

If it doesn't work then you need to look at the drivers and get forensic on it - use event monitor in verbose mode, open calls with the vendor and try to get a consultant available to help.

Good luck.