Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Install a device driver silently?

0 helpful
6 replies

by arlo mccalla

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have an SYS, INF, and CAT file for a USB Smart Card Reader. I need to install these drivers on about 600 systems over the network using SMS. Does anyone know how to install device drivers in Windows 2000 Pro SP2 using a command line? I have theSMS Installer and have repackaged the driver install as a test, but don't want to use the resulting EXE to install since the driver updates CATMAST.CBD and HASHMAST.CBD, both of which appear to be unique to each system and the drivers installed on it. I'd like to invoke the hardware wizard method, but through a command line that can be executed without user interaction. Anyone know of a way, or even know of a third party application that can be used to accomplish this? Thanks!

Arlo

6 replies

by arlo mccalla

I've found the utility Devcon.exe, but want something a little more user-friendly. Plus, this utility is non-distributable and doesn't appear to do what I need, since the instance ID's used to determine hardware could be formatted differently on each system, preventing me from deploying my driver update to multiple systems.

by alpha-male

The absolute finest product I have encountered for this sort of thing is Novell's Zenworks. I'm not sure this is an option for you, but well worth a look.

by arlo mccalla

That looks like a good product, but we're not running NDS, nor are we able to. Thanks for the response though!
Arlo

by spn

Using the rundll32 could work eg

RUNDLL32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 128 %PATH%\WDHAALBA.inf

spn

by arlo mccalla

Microsoft told us the same thing, but we would need our own VB application to actually do the installation. They also couldn't tell us the appropriate API's to call to install this service, but by that time we had decided to install the service manually. Thanks for the tip!
Arlo

This discussion is closed to new replies.