Deployment Solution

I was advised to put this issue into a separate thread so here it goes.

Is there a better way to add/update drivers in the Boot Disk Creator.   We have quite a few Dell Vostro 1310/1510 model laptops that seem to have a Realtek RTL8168c NIC and for some reason they do not want to work with Altiris.    I See the driver in the list and I tried to add the updated WinVista PE driver from the one I downloaded from Realteks Website but I still think it is trying to use the old one that comes with 6.9 SP1 MP1.   The error message I am getting is "Restarting DHCP Client Service: retry..." .      I read in a Altiris KB article here that stated something about copying the inf and sys files to  "bootwiz\platforms\winpe\x86\base\i386\inf" and "bootwiz\platforms\winpe\x86\base\i386\system32\drivers"    folders but those do not exist on my DS 6.9SP1 server and this article applies to DS 6.5 so I am not sure if it is still relevent.    How can I add or update the current drivers for this realtek card?

This is one specific card but I anticipate this will come up in the future.   Most of our Machines use the Intel Pro 1000 or BroadCom 1000 NICs which seem to be pretty standard but we do have a few machines that may need some tweaking when it comes to their NICs and Altiris.  

Just to rule out the wireless NIC I disabled it by the disable switch on the laptop and when the computer is on the Altiris client reports that it is connecting via the onboard Realtek NIC.    I have read similar issues on the internet but cannot seem to find a solution.   Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

the Bootwiz folder should be in the express share of your DS.  I am also on DS 6.9SP1 and it is there.

I have also had trouble adding newer versions of the same driver when an update is needed.  Replacing the files in the path [express share]\Bootwiz\platforms\Winpe\x86\Drivers\std\I386 and then inf or system32 worked.  The boot disk should compile the new version of the driver when you create a new bootdisk.

I guess I did not go deep enough.  I was looking where an old KB article pointed which I referenced in my post.      I am going try and copy the updated inf and other driver files into there and re-compile the boot disk.  Thank You.

I was looking for places to put the netrtx32.inf file and the rtlh86.sys file and when I look in the ...eXpress\Deployment Server\Bootwiz\platforms\ I have a WinPE and a WinPE2 folder.    the both have ...x86\Drivers\std\I386\inf folders but nothing in there has those files to replace.

I can only find those old files in the ...eXpress\Deployment Server\DriversDB\ folders.    Should I put them there or which WinPE folder shoudl I be using and why are there two?

The WinPE folder has "inf" folder in the I386 folder and there are a bunch of inf files contained there.

The WinPE2 folder does not appear to contain an I386 folder anywhere in the sub folders and when I open the drivers folder there are a bunch of sub folders that contain driver information for various NICs such as inf and sys files but nothing related to the realtek in either folder.

Based on that info I think the appropriate folder is the first WinPE folder as that one has both an i386 and a system 32 folder.   Should I just drop the inf and sys files there where the other inf and sys files are?

Well which are you using WinPE or WinPE2? I am guessing you are actually using winpe2 in which case make sure you are using Vista Realtek drivers, not XP ones. The "have disk" should work then.

troubleshooting
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=44474&p=1

process for nic drivers is same as MSD
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=40799&p=1

I think I figured it out.  I added the driver and found the direcotry ...eXpress\Deployment Server\Bootwiz\platforms\Winpe2\x86\Drivers\CUSTOM\Drivers  and saw a newly created folder called netrtx32.   There was only a txt file in there.    I manually added the inf, sys, dll and other files from the driver extract (Vista Driver) and rebuilt the package and then it seemed to work.   Why I had to manually copy those files over I do not know.

I believe the Have DIsk feature is the easiest way to add NIC and Mass storage drivers to BDC.

nelo

Yeah thats what I did and all it seemed to add was a folder and a txt file.  I had to manually copy the inf and sys and dll files to that folder for the driver and rebuild the WinPE automation and PXE boots to get it to work.

Unfortunatelly, DS 6.9 SP1 had a bug with the have disk feature. This is fixed on later patches and in DS 6.9 SP2.

nelo

I didn't know SP2 was available yet?  I just downloaded the installs not too long ago and all I saw was SP1 and MP1.