Adding drivers for multiple hardware platforms to the image

  • Thread starter Thread starter LoganLlama
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LoganLlama

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Hi! Just started looking into NTLite, and I'm really impressed with all of the features. For my scenario, I'm deploying a hardware independent image of Windows 7 to lots of different machines. They all have varying drivers, and I'm perplexed on how to go about including all the drivers in the image. (All the computers are either Optiplex 380s, 390s, 9010s, 9020s, or 9030s)

Can I include basic drivers for all of these machines in the Drivers integration menu of NTLite, and it will pull only the ones applicable to the machine? Or will it try to install them all and fail on some of them?
 
LoganLlama said:
Can I include basic drivers for all of these machines in the Drivers integration menu of NTLite, and it will pull only the ones applicable to the machine? Or will it try to install them all and fail on some of them?
Click to expand...

Yes! You can include all drivers and Windows will use what it sees which is better but i don't recommend to integrate touchpad drivers as it could install Elantech's instead of Synaptic's.

I don't integrate touchpad drivers and huge driver folders like video, sound and bluetooth (a waste of time integrating and a waste of drive space).
 
Chances the same chipset and display drivers will be used within a series, 3xx and 9xxx and possibly on both series assuming all have intel chipsets and integrated video, that will save som space on the iso if you install from a dvd drive and are limited to 4.3gb. If you install from usb then you could put them all in, except for what Kasual recommends.

Chances are all machines use different w7 editions so trim out the editions you know you dont need, double check using the Dell Service Tag numbers what edition bit types you need, 32 or 64bit.
 
Kasual said:
Yes! You can include all drivers and Windows will use what it sees which is better but i don't recommend to integrate touchpad drivers as it could install Elantech's instead of Synaptic's.

I don't integrate touchpad drivers and huge driver folders like video, sound and bluetooth (a waste of time integrating and a waste of drive space).
Click to expand...

Thank you so much! This will be tremendous in my work!
 
Clanger said:
Chances the same chipset and display drivers will be used within a series, 3xx and 9xxx and possibly on both series assuming all have intel chipsets and integrated video, that will save som space on the iso if you install from a dvd drive and are limited to 4.3gb. If you install from usb then you could put them all in, except for what Kasual recommends.

Chances are all machines use different w7 editions so trim out the editions you know you dont need, double check using the Dell Service Tag numbers what edition bit types you need, 32 or 64bit.
Click to expand...


Luckily we use a FOG server to image all of our machines, so size isn't a huge deal, and all Windows 7 copies will be Enterprise. I was worried I wouldn't be able to dump them all in the file, but this is exciting! So much time will be saved!
 
Enterprise will be a single edition probably as long as you use a single bit type.
 
Clanger said:
Enterprise will be a single edition probably as long as you use a single bit type.
Click to expand...

Most (if not all) of our machines are migrated to 64-bit bases, so I think I should be good in that respect. Thanks!
 
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