Windows PE network setup
- by microchasm
I'm walking through the following step-by-step guide for deploying Windows 7 via AIK: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348%28WS.10%29.aspx
On step 4 (Capturing the Installation onto a Network Share), I run into a bit of a snag: attempting to connect to a network drive repeatedly fails. I'm using/deploying Dell Optiplex 380 64 bit machines, and the network cards seem to be really wonky. On the machine that I'm using to run AIK etc, the network driver wasn't found automatically. I had to manually go in and install the driver (which was found on the OEM installation media). I've since copied this to the USB key that I'm using for the Autounattend.xml so its handy.
I think that because of this, the PE environment doesn't or can't instantiate the network device.
Is there a way to install/configure the network device through the command prompt in PE? If not, I read about adding in the answer file path(s) to drivers, but if I did it this way, would I have to start the process all over again (i.e. create new Autounattend.xml with the PnPcustomizations path included, re-run the installation on the reference machine, install all the applications, re-make the PE iso, reboot into new PE iso)?
Any shortcuts, direction, or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!
