Install drivers after OS?

[RSD-Tech]

Hi all, I'm new to posting here, but I've been reading and following the guides here for a couple weeks now. The lab is really coming along now, I've got most things working like PXE boot, OS deployment, Windows Updates, and applications being deployed successfully, and I have a pretty solid Task sequence ready for deploying a machine from box to desk, except for the drivers!

 

Luckilly, Windows 7 includes enough drivers for network connectivity, but there are a lot that dont work, Video, Wifi, and sound mostly, so it hasnt been an issue for my testing purposes that the machine doesnt have all of its drivers installed, but I'd definitely like to get them installing.

 

Most of the driver related topics I've found and read involve installing the drivers during the initial OS deployment task sequence. Since that generally takes so long to execute, I was wondering if its possible to separate the task sequences, so I have 1 that will install the OS to a base state, then another task sequence that I can run afterwards to test my driver installation package. This would let me more rapidly test the driver installation task sequence until I can get it right and then of course re-integrate it into my deployment sequence.

 

Will this work at all, or am I making my problems worse for myself?

[RSD-Tech]

So, after trying a few more things under the drivers section, I've given up on this approach, I think its just the issues with these crazy HP drivers and the way they are packaged.

 

I simply created Software Distribution Packages for each one, and silently run the setup/installer, and now all the drivers are installed. I'm just putting these packages into my OSD Task Sequence now to try my first fully automated system build from ground to "finished"

 

I'll say that I may come back to this approach at some point down the road, but given that this works, that is probably not very likely!

 

Thanks again for the advice everyone!