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Configure Windows to Search Additional Folders for Device Drivers

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Over the years, one of the things I dreaded doing was rebuilding clients. Almost always I would have to go to the internet to hunt for drivers. The client installation process has greatly improved over the past several years to include image deployments. The problem with images are that you need to service them be able to use them on different hardware platforms. This is because of the device drivers. Now there is a different method that will allow you to use your images on multiple hardware platforms without having to service the image to add new plug-and-play drivers.

When a client boots, it enumerates the plug-and-play devices that are connected to the client. The client then searches its central store and installs the appropriate drivers. If a driver is not found, we then have to provide one. An easy way to make sure the drivers you use are available to all your clients is to store them in a central location.

Be careful whenever you edit the registry. An incorrect setting may require a reinstallation of the operating system

1) Create a shared location on your network that has READ permissions for the Everyone group. In class I discouraged the use of this group but if we are working with a client that has not been added to the domain, you will want the client to get anonymous access to this share. For a more secure method, use the Authenticate Users group

2) Place all you Plug-and-play drivers in this share.

3) Complete the rest of this procedure on the source computer for you deployment image.

4) Start Registry Editor. Click Start, and in the Start Search box type regedit.

5) If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

6) Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version

7) In the details pane, double-click DevicePath.

8) Add additional folder paths to the setting, separating each folder path with a semi-colon. Ensure that %systemroot%\inf is one of the folders included in the value.

Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753716(ws.10).aspx

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