Installing Device Driver

Installing Device Driver using DPInst:

Repackaging of Device Driver is a difficult task. But some tools are available in market which can be used for installing driver. A very well known tool is DPINST which most used for installing drivers through MSI.

Drive Files:

While repackaging we need to make sure that following files are available for proper installation of device drivers:

1. Driver Files
2. Install Files

Driver Files: Driver files are a DLL file with generally a .sys files extension.

Install File: In the install file we get following important files:

INF file or Information files: Which contains information about drivers.

CAT File: It's a Driver Catalog File. This file contain information about each file in driver package.

Using DPINST.exe

It's a third party executable can be downloaded from net.

The syntax and its command line options are as given below:

Syntax:

DPInst.exe [/U INF-file][/S | /Q][/LM][/P][/F][/SH][/SA][/A][/PATH Path][
/EL][/L LanguageID][/C][/D][/LogTitle Title][/SW][/? | /h | /help]C

Command Line options:

• /U path to INF file Uninstall a driver package (INF-file).
• /S | /Q Silent (Quiet) mode. Suppresses the Device Installation Wizard and any dialogs popped-up by the operating system.
• /LM Legacy mode. Accepts unsigned driver packages and packages with missing files. These packages won't install on the latest version of Windows.
• /P Prompt if the driver package to be installed is not better than the current one.
• /F Force install inf the driver package is not better than the current one.
• /SH Scans hardware for matching devices and only copies and installs those drivers for which a device is present. Only valid for Plug and Play drivers.
• /SA Suppress the Add/Remove Programs entry normally created for each driver package.
• /A Install all or none.
• /PATH Path Search for driver packages under the given path.
• /EL Enables all languages not explicitly listed in the XML file.
• /L LanguageID Tries to use the given language in all UI. Useful for localization tests.
• /SE Suppress the EULA.
• /C Dump logging output to attached Console (Windows XP and above).
• /D Delete driver binaries on uninstall.
• /SW Suppresses the Device Installation Wizard, the operating system might still pop-up user dialogs.
• /? | /h | /help Shows this help.

Driver Package Install

Command Line:

DPInst.exe /PATH "<files_path>\." /Q /A /F /SA

Where files_path is a folder in which the driver installation files i.e. .inf, .cat or .sys files are present.

It is important to give "\." at the end of files_path, so that the executable will take care of all the driver files present under that folder.