"C:\Sysprep\drivers" or "C:\Drivers"?

[Barkley Bees]

As mentioned in a separate post, I am building a new Windows XP image for
deployment to our users, and I have my sysprep folder setup as it should be
on the reference PC. My question is regarding the drivers folder. In our
previous images we have always had the drivers folder located at
"C:\drivers" which works fine but now with the new hardware models for this
year this folder has gotten quite large.

So I am thinking of placing the drivers folder into the sysprep folder
"C:\Sysprep\drivers" so that after the mini-setup is run and the driver
installs are completed the drivers will get deleted along with the sysprep
folder. Does anyone here do this and if so, have you encountered any issues
with doing it this way?

I am concerned that some driver files may be in a locked\accessed state and
when mini-setup goes to delete the sysprep folder it may not be able to
delete all the drivers correctly.

My rationale for wanting to delete the drivers are:
- with all the extra files on the client PC's our AV client scheduled and
automated scans will take that much longer and impact performance for some
users during the scan (ie: lower rpm laptop HDD's).
- that they will simply be wasting space on the client computers (~1.2GB of
drivers).

Once again, appreciate any feedbaack/advice. Thanks.

 

[Klaus Jorgensen]

Barkley Bees formulated on tirsdag :

I am concerned that some driver files may be in a locked\accessed state and
when mini-setup goes to delete the sysprep folder it may not be able to
delete all the drivers correctly.

Maybe a bit off topic, but I am looking for a method to check if XP is
still scanning for new hardware so that I can determine if it is safe
to delete the driver files.

I am using an image with Chipset, SATA and network drivers only, and
have a small script that downloads the driver package for a specific
computer model to c:\drv. Then delete the unknown devices from the
device manager, add driver paths to registry and then initiate a scan
for new hardware (or simply reboot to start scanning).

I have been thinking of using the registry RunOnce key to delete the
driver folder on the second or third reboot, but I'd like a method to
just wait for the scanning process to finish.

 

[Barkley Bees]

Does anyone have any feedback they can offer on the below? Do most of you
place your drivers in the root "C:\Drivers" or do any of you place it in the
sysprep folder "C:\Sysprep\Drivers" so they get deleted after the MiniSetup
Wizard runs? Thanks.

 

[Hunter01]

Personally I'd go C:\drivers (we did), or even c:/d, every subdirectory
you hang off it needs it's only little chunk in the driver line,
recursing doesn't work (as much as some say it does). We use Altiris
these days so we inject all the required drivers post-sysprep,
pre-first-boot and all is good now, but in the dark old days when we had
to put ALL the drivers for every hardware model down there lots of
subdirectories came into play due to common file names, so the shorter
the path the better.

That was back in the dark old days when we believed MS's bollocks that
you couldn't fix the HAL between different HAL types as well, but that's
another story all over again....

 

[Hunter01]

Personally I'd go C:\drivers (we did), or even c:/d, every subdirectory
you hang off it needs it's only little chunk in the driver line,
recursing doesn't work (as much as some say it does). We use Altiris
these days so we inject all the required drivers post-sysprep,
pre-first-boot and all is good now, but in the dark old days when we had
to put ALL the drivers for every hardware model down there lots of
subdirectories came into play due to common file names, so the shorter
the path the better.

That was back in the dark old days when we believed MS's bollocks that
you couldn't fix the HAL between different HAL types as well, but that's
another story all over again....

Ooops, missed the operative point, deletion of drivers... Why do you
want to? if something goes hairy they're still there for a quick manual
fix? but if you're keen on cleanliness throw it in the runonce key and
give all users full control to the directory and all good. First logon
will turf it, with an "is it there" bit at the front to make sure some
other user hasn't already turfed it. Or you could try guirunonce or
cmdlines.txt for cleaner results, but can't honestly tell you which
might interfere with sysprep driver install, all I can say is
cmdlines.txt runs before guirunonce.