When creating SCCM driver packages I always (99%) use WMI queries to select the correct driver package to be installed. Often I perform these tasks remotely without visiting the customer. The main reason for this blog post is to provide a list of useful commands that the customer can execute on the computer to get the WMI query I need. Depending on the hardware vendor you might want to use different commands, but these commands should provide most of the information you need. Here is the computer information that where returned by running the commands on my computer: wmic csproduct…
Browsing: Drivers
This morning, one of my customers called me and told me that they bought some new Lenovo laptops (Lenovo ThinkPad S540), but they was unable start OS Deployment using SCCM/PXE. Normally when I see this behaivor, it’s caused by a missing driver in the boot image, so I told them to verify that the driver was loaded correct. Here is a guide to verify the network driver in a SCCM Boot Image: https://www.ronnipedersen.com/2009/04/importing-network-drivers-into-the-windows-pe-boot-image/ But the driver was loaded correct, so I requested the SMSTS.log and found another common issue. The SMSTS.log file can be found here: https://www.ronnipedersen.com/2014/08/sccm-2012-r2-smsts-log-located/ In the SMSTS.log…
Before you start adding drivers to Configuration Manager, you should spend a few minutes to decide where and how you wish to structure your drivers. There is no “one-size fits all”, but this model should fit most customers. The Driver Source The driver source, is the path where the drivers are imported from. The source files should always be placed on at network share, that can be accessed from the Configuration Manager Site Server. I always prefer to use DFS, as it provide me the flexibility I need when migrating ConfigMgr or the file servers hosting the source files. This…
One of the challenges with managing drivers in Configuration Manager is related to way drivers are imported into ConfigMgr. Duplicate drivers are ignored by default, so they don’t get put into the specified categories. The System Center Configuration Manager team has made a hotfix available that changes the driver import behavior. The hotfix is available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2213600. I’m not 100% sure if this will change from the way we handle drivers today, but I need to to back to my lab and figure that out…
Today I got a call from a customer that wanted me to add a new network driver for a Lenovo ThinkPad T410, to the boot image in ConfigMgr. The driver was a Windows 7 only driver, so I needed to apply the KB978754 hotfix first. When I first tried to apply the hotfix I got the following error: Software Update for ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 (KB978754) Setup Wizard ended prematurely. The hotfix is a standard MSI, so I added the log switch (SCCM2007-SP2-KB978754-X86-ENU.msi /l d:kb978754.log), and tried again. The setup was unable to stop the “tmlisten” service (Trend Micro OfficeScan NT…
The IBM Deployment Pack for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) is used to configure IBM hardware components prior to deploying Windows using Microsoft SCCM. This kit extends Configuration Manager 2007 by providing a convenient integrated user interface that will be familiar to SCCM administrators. The Deployment Pack completes the end-to-end deployment scenario in environments where IBM-specific configuration steps are required including RAID, IMM, RSA2, BMC, and BIOS/UEFI. Key features include: IBM-specific drivers, agents, and firmware Scriptable hardware configuration tools for the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) Sample configuration files and scripts, including sample Sysprep and Unatted.txt files Download here.
A lot of questions that often pops up in various newsgroups and on the Microsoft TechNet forums are related to importing drivers in the Windows PE boot image. This article will walk you through this process step-by-step. This guide assumes that the following steps have been completed: The PXE Service Point are installed and configured. Command line support have been enabled for both the x86 and x64 boot image. The boot image is distributed to the PXE Service Point and a Distribution Point. A Task Sequence has been created and is advertised to the client. Identifying that a driver is…