Add Drivers to boot.wim (for Vista/7 Images)

Adding drivers to a boot image can be a real pain the ass.  It’s not a fairly intuitive process however once you do it, it’s fairly easy.  The problem comes from the fact that a lot of drivers will lock up the Driver Package Wizard for whatever reason.

If not for the above reason, I would normally say go ahead and add 100 drivers at a time, keep it easy. But due to the wizard’s tendency to lock up on certain drivers, it’s best practice to only add drivers one at a time, as you discover you need them.

The main drivers you will want to add to the boot images are usually storage controller drivers and NIC drivers. You’ll know when you need a storage controller driver when the install image doesn’t detect the hard disk, and you’ll need a NIC driver when the PXE boot initiates giving you the WDS menu, but fails soon after starting WDS with any connection error.

You’ll want to add these drivers to both the Boot Images, and the Capture Images. Let’s get started.

First download the drivers you need, EXTRACT them, and add them to your server. See pic:

All drivers in the folder you select will be automatically selected, just click next until the wizard completes. You will be asked to add the drivers to a “Group” but this is not necessary unless you want them categorized. If you do, cancel the wizard, go back and create a new driver group by right-clicking > Add Driver Group and redo the wizard here.

Next, we need to add the drivers to the boot image, and capture image. This is two steps, both done identically, but I’ll just show you a pic of doing it for the boot image.

Once you select the drivers to add to the image, just click next. The image will be mounted, driver added, and the wizard will complete. Note this can be a lengthy process, but when you are tempted to add a ton drivers at once, remember this wizard can lock up with a corrupted driver, one not fully extracted, or for other reasons.  It’s best to add drivers a few at a time only.

This process isn’t for XP, and for that you’ll want to see the section:  Add Drivers to XP Images (with Sysprep.inf)

Network Boot Guide

• Install WDS (Windows Deployment Services)
  • Add Vista/7 Images to WDS
  • Add Drivers to boot.wim (for Vista/7 Images)    <- You are here!
  • Add Drivers to XP Images (with Sysprep.inf)
  • Add XP or Modified Vista/7 Images to WDS
• Install Syslinux
  • Add Boot Images to Syslinux on WDS
• Troubleshooting Issues

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