SnapDeploy 2.0 Universal Deploy and Drivers

Is the Universal deploy for snap deploy the same as for TrueImage Corporate products.

As in it will only detect HALL and Massstorage drivers?

Or can I point to a directory filed with all system drivers to automatically find about 99 procent of all system drivers....

Because when this isn't the case then for example when I have 1000 pc's with 50 different hardware type I would have to install all the other drivers by hand. This just can't be the intention of A Universal Deploy Feature.

 

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

Please be aware that Acronis Universal Deploy is the same as Acronis Universal Restore. You can create a folder and save all necessary system drivers there. Then point Acronis Universal Deploy on this folder and it will take the appropriate drivers for the appropriate machine even if you are deploing the same image to 1000 PC's with 50 different hardware types.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

No this is not true!

This folders will only be searched for mass storage drivers NOT for example for Audio drivers or VGA Drivers.....

Please explain!

 

Hello Jeremy,

I'm sorry for not being accurate enough in my explanation.

Yes, you are right. Acronis Universal Deploy (Restore) does not install drivers for Plug-&-Play devices. It takes care only of crucial HAL and hard disk controller drivers.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

So the product is then worthless! Please fix this because buying the Universal Deploy option doesn't add up!

 

I heart you guys where testing with PNP drivers. How far are you guys and Can I get an intermediate version to test with?

 

Good thing they are quick to reply to your question. ha ha ha

Michael

 

The PNP driver support is already added to Universal Restore build 3694 of TrueImage and they told me they would also add it to Universal Deploy

 

Acronis Snap Deploy 2 & Acronis Universal Deploy Problem

Hi

I have created my master image of xp pro, uploaded it to the deploy server, then I create a template with the device drivers like chipset, video, sound, nic etc.

I can sucessfully deploy the images to other pcs with different hardware. But the problem I am having is it deploys the drivers to the machine, and leaves them in a folder with a long name but it doesn't install them, so when I boot the pc it hasn't installed the drivers. They are the right drivers as I have manually installed them from the folder that snap deploy and universal deploy leave on the destination system.

How do I fix this problem. As I have got 6 different machines that need to be finished by Tuesday

Matthew

 

I have just bought acronis snap deploy 2 and universal deploy, and I can't get it to install device drivers like sound, video, chipset drivers etc.

I can specifiy the drivers when creating the template in the snap deploy management console, and I point it to the folder on my server with all the drivers and when finishing deploying the destination system it copies the drivers over and places them in a folder under C: Drive the folder name is a long name with numbers and letters.

But it doesn't automatically install them. How do I get it to automatically install them, This is one reason I bought the software.

Matthew

 

Hello matthew01,

Thank you for choosing Acronis System Transferring Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please note that the primary goal of Acronis Universal Deploy is to boot the deployed system. As Kirill mentioned, the current version of this product handles only HAL and mass storage device drivers and does not install drivers for other devices (sound cards, network adapters, video cards etc.). Once the deployed system starts, Windows takes control and initiates the usual first-start process. At this point, you will be able to specify drivers for other devices if Windows cannot find them automatically.

I would recommend that you have a look at chapter 5.2 "The master OS preparation" of the respective User's Guide for more information.

P.S. I have also merged another thread you have started into this one since it concerns the same question.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Ok so when I deploy a 1000 workstations. I need to install all the other device drivers By hand!

Why? Why would anybudy buy Universal Deploy then?

 

You would want to combine Universal Deploy with Microsoft's Sysprep tool. Sysprep can handle the PNP drivers, but it doesn't work well with different mass storage controllers. That's where Universal Deploy is useful.

 

Jay could you give us an example of the pnp drivers and sysprep ?

I am not sure how to set this up. I know I should be using the
OemPnPDriversPath = drivers
but I can't seem to get this working does it go through only the drivers directory or does it go through all the sub folders as well ?

 

I believe it does not transverse subfolders. You would have to put the full path for any folder with the drivers for a piece of hardware you'd want to autodetect, separated by semicolons. The folder you use needs to contain the .inf file for the driver.

 

Ok, upon further digging this is how you can (and I recommend you put in) your drivers.

There is a SysPrep Driver Scanner tool that will add entries to your registry file. This is by far the fastest/easiest way to date that I have seen that works as stated.

Check the link out.
http://www.vernalex.com/tools/spdrvscn/index.shtml

Now you can get rid of that pesky OEMPNPDrivers path

 

Ryan:

Thanks for the link. I used your tool in conjunction to the section in universal deploy where you can set a folder to search for drivers. So essentially, I put all my drivers in c:\drivers. I then used the spdrvscan tool to input the driver location into the registry, and when I created my template for image deployment, I told universal deploy to scan the c:\drivers folder. This way you don't have to use sysprep at all, and universal deploy will find the PNP drivers in the local folder stored on the master image (c:\drivers) and allow them to be installed. The part that doesn't work is storing the drivers on a fileserver or shared network drive.

 

I'm currently having an issue with image deployment that may be driver relatate. Each machine that I've deployed using Universal Deploy boots just fine with one exception. I cannot log into the system because there is no input from neither the mouse nor keyboard. I'm deploying images to laptops and I've tried using external keyboards and mice as well with no luck. I cannot move the mouse cursor from its current location in the center of the screen. Does anyone know what is causing this? I'm currently building a new image from scratch to see if there is something wrong with my image.

 

I've never deployed to laptops, but I've noticed (on desktops), after deployment, that it takes a bit for USB devices (mice and keyboards) to become a recognized device. So esentially after the Windows GINA displays I have to wait up to 30 seconds to a minute for the mouse and/or keyboard to register my input.

Not sure if this is the same deal with your laptops though.

 

so there is no way to install drivers from a network share? this is a huge problem. we've got a fair number of PnP drivers on a network share that would be a huge pain to copy to every computer, especially when they're not needed on the majority of systems!

did someone say something about Universal Restore supporting this feature? details? I may have to switch to that method if it supports it...

 

Acronis Workstation with universal Restore does support all the driver types.

What I normally do is the following:

On an existing platform with x number of PC types I spend a few hours with Driver Genius Pro. On the different (normally 3-10) PC models I install Driver Genius Pro and build a SFX with the drivers (PNP and NONPNP) that is not included in XP Pro.

I then go to the "Mother PC" (imageMaster) and run the SFX files.
That slipstreams (copies and registers) the drivers onto that PC and I then create the Distribution Image.
All the PC's that I've collected drivers from will boot without asking for any additional drivers, when that image is deployed on them!

I guess this method will work just as well with SnapDeploy, because XP KNOWS the drivers it needs when it boots the first time.

 

Don't you also get all the software utilities installed then in the master image?

 

I'm very new to this and don't know if I have the tech expertise to be able to use Snap and Universal Deploy properly.

I've made my tib file, but am having awful trouble sorting out the drivers issue.

I have a folder full of drivers that Universal Deploy can reach into, but it gives me the error that:

E001D0194: Device driver 'PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2829&SUBSYS_30C0103C&REV_03' for Microsoft XP Professional is not found.
I've no idea how to translate that.

So, what's in the folder of drivers that I have? Well, I went to the HP subsite relevant to the laptop that I'm trying to deploy onto and there were 45 .exe files which were all the drivers for the 6510b model.

So, my question - are these downloaded .exe files the right ones to have in this folder? If so, any ideas, why this isn't working? If not, what should I be doing instead, please?!

Tech support are very slow to respond to emails about this and these two laptops need to be ready ASAP, so I'd be grateful for any help. (I know that the time saved to deploy onto two laptops isn't much, but this is just the start!)

 

Hello edanto,

Please note that you should unpack your downloaded .exe driver packages before using them with Acronis Universal Deploy. The reason is quite simple - Acronis Universal Deploy is parsing the folder for .inf files which contain the installation instructions for corresponding drivers.

Acronis Universal Deploy is unable to extract the drivers from .exe packages.

Thank you.

--
Michael Levchenko

 

Thanks for that. I have been exploring another avenue, which was to download all of driverpack.net to a folder for Universal to search and that seems to have improved the process.

The first computer has booted up - but I've been asked to reactivate windows and also, the 'Found New Hardware' wizard has kicked in for several devices.

It was able to find a driver for one device, but not for several others.

When I tried what you suggested, unpacking the .exe files into a folder for Universal to search I got a warning about overwriting when I tried to do the second one. I'm trying to put them in a folder called 'unpacked' and the warning that I got is that
The following file is already on your computer:
C:\images_for_deployment\Drivers_for_6510b_from_HP_site\unpacked\Disk1\data.cab
Do you wish to overwrite this file?

So, do you know, can I safely overwrite this cab file or will the .inf file reference it? If I can't safely overwrite, then do I have to put all of the unpacked drivers in a separate folder?

At which point, the amount of time I am likely to save by using Acronis will reduce significantly. I have already spent 25 hours, trying to get the product to work, when I could have installed an entire software pack on several PCs. For me, as the ICT person in a small company, the cost-benefit of Acronis is not looking good.

I would suggest that you improve the ability of Universal Deploy to find the required drivers from a web resource that you maintain.