sysprep deletes my installed network drivers - help!

[Guest]

I am using sysprep to prepare a Windows XP disk image for ghost of computer
with an Alacritech ethernet card. The image will be restored to 20+ computers
that match the hardware exactly including the Alacritech ethernet card. On
the base computer I have the Alacritech ethernet card drivers installed
configured and working (including the IP and DNS info I need for the imaged
computers to have).

I'm using sysprep because I want to be sure that I don't have duplicate SIDs
on the network. However, sysprep seems to want to do more than I need it to
do. It seems to be focused around making images that can be used on
non-uniform hardware. I want to make an image that will be deployed on
machines that have exactly the same hardware.

The problem for me is that when I run Sysprep in reseal mode (which I think
is what I want to be doing), it seems to delete the working alacritech
drivers as part of the reseal process - I don't mean it is deleting the
driver installer files, I mean that it is deleting the installed/active
drivers in the Windows\System32\drivers folder (I can see that it does
because if the nic is enabled when I run sysprep reseal, as the reseal
process completes, sometimes there is a bluescreen crash saying that atcp.sys
is missing - atcp.sys is one of the alacritech nic card files).

When I reboot into the restored image, everything works fine except I get an
unknown hardware window for the Alacritech ethernet card. I then have to
reinstall the Alacritech drivers. How can I install network card drivers so
that they still work after sysprep - moreover so that they keep their
settings such as Duplex/Speed and even IP/DNS settings?

Again, I see how to have the mini-setup install drivers from the
c:\sysprep\driver\net folder after the mini-setup, but that's not what I
need. I just simply need it to not uninstall/delete the working drivers
during the reseal process.

So what it boils down to is that I specifically don't want to prepare this
image for multiple hardware configurations. I just want to work on the same
computer exactly.

Any thoughts? Should I not be using Sysprep for this? All I really need
(or at least think I need) is to prepare this Windows XP SP2 image so that it
every computer that I clone it to has unique SIDs (giving it a unique name is
nice also). Is there a better way to do this?

I’ve been searching online for solutions to this but every mention of
sysprep and drivers talks about how sysprep can be setup to install drivers
for non-uniform hardware installations. Nobody seems to talk about how to
make it work when you already have the drivers installed in the base computer
and you just don’t want them to be touched.

Thanks in advance

 

[Adam Leinss]

Any thoughts? Should I not be using Sysprep for this? All I
really need (or at least think I need) is to prepare this Windows
XP SP2 image so that it every computer that I clone it to has
unique SIDs (giving it a unique name is nice also). Is there a
better way to do this?

Why are you issuing -reseal? I believe -reseal and -factory are used
by OEMs to prep their PCs for their retail customers. Try "sysprep -
mini" instead and see what happens.

Adam

 

[Guest]

You need to add the drivers for the Network card to the image. Create a
folder named c:\Drivers\Device and extract the driver to this folder. Next
edit the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Devicepath to point
to the c
:\Driver\Device folder. When Sysprep was run it removed the devices so they
will be redetected this is by design so the image can be deployed to
differant hardware setups.You are correct in using Sysprep with Reseal and
Mini setup. When Sysprep runs it will re numerate the hardwade device and try
to install drivers for the devices.

 

[Guest]

You need to add the drivers for the Network card to the image. Create a
folder named c:\Drivers\Device and extract the driver to this folder. Next
edit the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Devicepath to point
to the c
:\Driver\Device folder. When Sysprep was run it removed the devices so they
will be redetected this is by design so the image can be deployed to
differant hardware setups.You are correct in using Sysprep with Reseal and
Mini setup. When Sysprep runs it will re numerate the hardwade device and try
to install drivers for the devices.

I get that - but that's not what I want to do - my original question was:
how do I get it to not do that? I want the image to be ready to go for one
type of hardware only without doing any post restore install (automatic or
otherwise). It seems like there is not a way to use sysprep to do what I want
to do. I'm going to use newsid from sysinternals.com instead.