TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter discusses some of the more theoretical terms of understanding what drivers do and how they work with Microsoft Windows and with Remote Installation Services. We'll also be showing some real-world examples of how to work with drivers more practically. The focus is not on hardware-specific issues. You don't need to be a hardware expert to understand this chapter. Instead, the focus is on how driver software interacts when deploying an operating system using Remote Installation Services. It is important to understand the interaction between devices, driver software, and the operating system if you want to make a successful client or server deployment using Remote Installation Services.
Highlights:
Understand why drivers are important
Understand why adding additional OEM driver support to client and server installations is essential
Understand how drivers are built
Get familiar with inf and sys files
Understand how to identify unknown devices
The drivers available in an OS image consist of the drivers supplied with that OS at the time of its release. This means that if you have added a Microsoft Windows XP image to your Remote Installation Services server, by default only the drivers supplied with Microsoft Windows XP are available with the image in question unless you manually include the additional correct drivers. This is the case for all operating systems supported with Remote Installation Services, including Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional or Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows XP. However, the drivers supplied with the OS...
