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Hi Phyxx,

thanks. Would you mind explaining how you would create an Acronis TI Universal Restore BootCD with the driverpacks ? Because as far as I know the TI Bootcd (both the Safe and Full versions) boots some kind of Linux, not Windows ? How would I integrate the DriverPacks into that or are you doing this differently ?

I would like to create a TI BootCD with all DriverPacks integrated so that in case of a boot emergency of a server I could boot with the TI CD, and restore an earlier image of that server to a different hardware.

Thanks,
Alex

Hi guys,

here´s an update from me on the Vista driverintegration "thing" with respect to DVD installs and WDS installs.

Seems like the following is true for the $WinPEDriver$ folder:

1. On DVD installations it works as expected. However currently there are problems with some chipset drivers. When the Intel Chipset drivers or the Radeon SB/NB drivers are present in the folder, WinPE will stop the Bootprocess saying that some critical bootdrivers could not be loaded. Removing those drivers from the folder solved the problem. Other than that I have not found any errors. In theory, this folder is also good for bootcritical drivers, all other drivers are prestaged for the Vista setup.

2. On WDS installs, one has to watch out for 3 things:

- The $WinPEDriver$ folder has to be integrated into boot.wim so it is available on the X: driver during WinPE startup phase. Maybe it is possible to map a network drive before that but WinPE checks for the existance of this folder at a very early time so maybe networking is not available at that point in time. Since the X: drive is essentially a RAM drive I am wondering how this would work if the $WinPEDriver$ folder grows large. How will that folder fit into the RAM drive ?!? This may be a problem for the future.

- Adding network drivers to that folder is not enough for WDS boots. In addition to that, the network drivers also have to be integrated into the boot.wim image using the peimg /inf command. If this is not done, the WinPE Bootprocess will stop saying that no network driver is present for booting from the WDS Server.

- Adding the network drivers to boot.wim using the peimg /inf command does not (!) add those drivers to the Vista installation later on. According to Microsoft this should work (at least I have interpreted their documents that way) but it does not. So in addition to adding them using the peimg /inf command one has to place those drivers in the $WinPEDriver$ folder or add them to the Vista image in another way.

- Microsoft reps told me on an MS forum to add an extra driverpath entry to the "Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsWinPE" pass of the autounattend.xml. Not only are the credentials used to connect to that folder written in cleartext to the xml, I could not get this to work at all with Vista + SP1. The setupact.log file did not contain any reference to that folder after the installation so I guess it wasn´t even checked. Have not found a solution to this problem although for DVD installations that may work, don´t know yet.

To conclude, a driverpack installer for Vista would probably have to cope with various different situations. There does not seem to be one perfect way to do this for everyone although the $WinPEDriver$ folder is close to that.

Bye,
Alex

Hi Jaak, Overflow,

thanks ! Looking forward to helping out (hope I have enough time *g*)

Bye,
Alex

Hi Mr Smartepants !

So how would you get access to the testers group ? I would like to help test driverpacks for Vista if possible. I do have access to quite a few computers since I am working as an IT administrator :-)

Thanks,
Alex

Hi !

I don´t quite agree with Helmi when it comes to the benefit of going 64bit with Vista. Ram is sooo cheap these days, 40€ für 2 GB ... and Vista really flies with 8GB RAM for instance since contrary to XP it uses that RAM for its cache. Using Vista with 2 GB RAM should be the minimum requirement for any performance oriented user and even 4 GB cannot be used with 32bit Vista completely so going with 64bit is or will be a reality for lots of people soon.

I would encourage you guys to go 64 bit with the driverpacks, at least when doing the Vista packs, you should be doing both 32 and 64 bit at the same time. (I agree, for 64bit XP you won´t find many drivers).

Also, Microsoft already changed the Logoprogram: any hardware designed for Vista must come with 64 bit drivers otherwise they manufacturer is not allowed to use the Windows logo anymore. That will soon lead to lots of 64bit drivers.

By the way: When will Vista driverpacks be in any kind of "betaphase" ? Any timetable for that ?

Vista SP1 is almost released and driverintegration should be much easier with it since it includes the $WinPeDriver$ folder functionality (Vista will look for that folder in the root of any accessible drive during WinPE phase).

Bye,
Alex

Hi Overflow !

IT ain´t true that SP3 is simply a rollup of past patches, otherwise they would call it a rollup patch :-) I can  tell you 2 new features out of my memory that SP3 brings to XP: NAP (Network access protection) with Server 2008 and they removed the need to use a serial to install XP (similar to vista).

I am sure there are more new features but I can´t remember now.

:-) Anyway, no hard feelings, didn´t want to start a war over this. By the way: SP3 is officially Available to the public. You can download the SP3 from numerous sources for instance chip online. However, Overflow is right that there is no support from MS.

Bye,
Alex

Hi Overflow,

I don´t mean any disrespect, just a suggestion:

It may be a good idea to prepare for the launch of SP3 by adding the necessary code a little in advance and play with the SP3 RC1 a little. It is RC1, not beta and I am sure the detection of a new SP will not change that much from RC to RTM.

You guys could put out a beta DP release, so people who do test the SP3 can test it and report feedback prior to the launch of SP3. If you only start working when SP3 is released you won´t have that much time to fix bugs and people might become impatient because they might have slipstreamed SP3 already and won´t have a working DP release to go with it.

Anyway, thanks for your work on the DP´s ....

My personal wish would be a complete DP solution for Vista but that´s far away I guess ... :-)

Bye,
Alex

up ?

I am seeing that the DP 7.09 did not contain any changes regarding the jmicron adapter. Is it not possible to restrict loading of the driver to AHCI, RAID modes only ?

Thanks for your help,
Alex

Hi !

I was able to get the log of the machine where the Nvidia driver did not get installed properly on an GF8600. That was on August 7th so the bug may have been resolved already in a more recent test driverpack.

Do you guys still need it ? If yes, where should I upload it ? It is too big to post it in the forum directly.

Bye,
Alex

Hi !

Issue is solved in DP 7.06.1 ! Thanks guys for your help !

Alex