Installing software after .wim image

Question

I have been looking all day into how to install software to a .wim image. I have a .wim image of a laptop that will be deplyed to 20 more. The image is pretty much good to go except I need to add a couple more drivers and a couple more applications.

Is there a way to do this in the answer file? Do I have to deploy the image, install the drivers/application, sysprep, and recapture the image?

Any information relating to this will be greatly appreciated.

Leon

ps I have only been using answer files and imagex. Would like to stick with this for the time being. I plan on using WDT and WDS when I have some time to learn about it.

Solution

For drivers :

microsoft offers DISM command line utilty for deploing windows 7

• mount the wim file using Imagex or gimagex or DISM : say to c:\mnt
• Move all your driver packages to one folder called "c:\drv"

• now use this command :

  Dism /image:c:\mnt\ /Add-Driver /driver:c:\drv\ /ForceUnsigned /Recurse

  /ForceUnsigned option for installing unsigned drivers
  /Recurse option : to specify drivers folder and dism will search for any driver package in that folder and auto-install it (if the driver is a package Dism will search for INF file which is the real driver-setup file and add it)

Comments

[lross1309]

The confusing I am getting is that some "drivers" are actually software packages that contain the drivers and software. Say, for example, a IntelGraphics Driver. It comes with the driver but also software to modify the graphics in Windows. Would I do the Add a driver, or Add an application?

[Patrick Seymour]

I use MDT for these and deploy it like an application. These types of "drivers" are quite annoying, aren't they?