Deployment Solution

I have an existing Altiris Windows 2008 image - how do I update it with new drivers for a new machine type? FYI - This is on Altiris 6.9 Build 355 SP1, and the new server is an IBM 3550M3. Thanks for the help.

Hello,

Adding/updating drivers in offline image is not possible.

-Sachin 

The answer here depends on both your image format, and your interpretation of offline. If the image is in WIM format, this you can mount it on the server with DSIM to do the update. Check out,

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744355(WS.10).aspx

If the image is in the Ghost or RDeploy image formats then this can't be done in that interpretation of 'offline'. If you deploy the Ghost/Redeploy image within WinPE though, the image is effectively offline after the image has been deployed with the WinPE automation environment  still loaded. You could then use DSIM at at point to make the driver changes you need.

Kind Regards,
Ian./

@Sachin -there is always a way....  ;-) 

Going one step further, if this is a sysprepped image, you can "inject" the drivers after the imaging process. You just need to know where the sysprep.inf file is pointing to for new drivers.  You can utilize the firm command (in DOS, Linux and WinPE) to copy the driver files directly to the production partition right after the image has been deployed to a computer.  The next time the computer boots into the production partition, the sysprep mini-setup will load the drivers as necessary.

This is one way to do a hardware independant image.  We currently have one image that we deploy to about 20 different models (laptops and desktops).  We use scripting to determine the make and model of the equipment being imaged and then only the drivers for that specific computer is copied over.  This helps to reduce the size of the image as well.

Dhawver,  I am new to Altiris.  Can you provide steps on how to inject the driver post deployment of the sysprep'd image?

This would be done via Automation directly after the image has been pushed.  Assuming you have WinPE and your destination computer is a Dell Precision WorkStatio T3500, your script might look something like:

i:\rdeploy\windows\x64\firm -recurse copy L:\t3500\* prod:\drivers
i:\rdeploy\windows\x64\firm delete prod:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
i:\rdeploy\windows\x64\firm delete prod:\WIDNOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
i:\rdeploy\windows\x64\firm copy L:\hal\halt3500.dll prod:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
i:\rdeploy\windows\x64\firm copy L:\hal\ntkrnlpat3500.exe prod:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe

The above script assumes that your "i:" drive is mapped to your express share (i.e. \\altiris\express).
In our environment, we have our drivers and hal files in another drive "L:"

What the above script is doing is to copy an entire driver folder to your production drive (in this case...c:\drivers).  Because we are dealing with many different machines (including older legacy machines), we delete the existing hal.dll and ntkrnlpa.exe from the machine and replace with machine specific versions.

If you are using other forms of automation (i.e. Linux or DOS), be sure to modify the script according to your needs and environment and use the correct firm command (see the different OS's in the "RDEPLOY" folder in your express share.