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Overview

One of the most challenging aspects of my career has been working with Windows Drivers. I have spent the last several years looking for ways to reduce my Driver footprint, and I'm sure my situation is not unique

Driver Automation Tool

Let my start by saying that the Driver Automation Tool is the Gold Standard for Driver Management. MVP Maurice Daly has done an exceptional job and this is what you should be using in your Enterprise

If you are already invested in this, stick with it. You would be a complete fool to use anything else

My Challenges

I'll be the first to admit that as beautiful as Maurice's Driver Automation Tool is, its not a good fit for my Enterprise, so in this section of OSDeploy, I'll play the part of The Fool and detail as much as I can about my approach and why

I'm not using the Driver Automation Tool

Portability

The biggest need that I have with all methods of Driver Management is that I need a small footprint. I don't need Automation, or simplicity. I'll gladly trade the conveniences if I can reduce the size of my Driver Repository.

I work for a large Oil Services company and support about 40,000 computers, soon to be 70,000. We are Global, and I have to support systems wherever the oil is. Most of these computers are connected in the Office, but a very large number of computers are not. They don't sit on our Domain, but rather, on a Rig in the middle of the Gulf, a Vessel in the middle of the ocean, or even in the back of a Truck. These are my Workgroup computers

Additionally, I support computers that sit in Offices ... but these are not typical Offices. These are Offices that are connected through a Satellite link in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East.

I have to support all of these systems. So when I manage my OS Images and Drivers, I need them to be small. I need Portability

Universal

Another challenge that I have is that I need to be able to image a computer with Windows 10 in several different scenarios to support my Enterprise, so however I decide to Manage and Deploy Drivers, it must be Universal. These are some of the

  • Network Connected

  • Network Disconnected

  • ConfigMgr

  • MDT

  • Windows Setup

  • USB

  • ISO

  • WinPE Dism

  • Clean OS Install

  • OS Upgrade

  • Domain

  • Workgroup

  • Many, many different Comptuer Models

Too many Computer Models

By far the largest hurdle I have is the number of Computer Models that I have to support. My company is a Dell shop, and we keep computers for much longer than I would like, so unfortunately, I have to support 115 different Computer Models on Windows 10

  1. Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme (7404)

  2. Latitude 5285

  3. Latitude 5290 2-in-1

  4. Latitude 5414

  5. Latitude 5480

  6. Latitude 5490

  7. Latitude 5491

  8. Latitude 7200 2-in-1

  9. Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet

  10. Latitude 7280

  11. Latitude 7290

  12. Latitude 7390

  13. Latitude 7400

  14. Latitude 7414

  15. Latitude 7480

  16. Latitude D620

  17. Latitude D630

  18. Latitude E4200

  19. Latitude E4310

  20. Latitude E5430 non-vPro

  21. Latitude E5440

  22. Latitude E5450

  23. Latitude E5470

  24. Latitude E5520

  25. Latitude E5530 non-vPro

  26. Latitude E5540

  27. Latitude E5550

  28. Latitude E5570

  29. Latitude E6220

  30. Latitude E6230

  31. Latitude E6320

  32. Latitude E6330

  33. Latitude E6400

  34. Latitude E6410

  35. Latitude E6420

  36. Latitude E6430

  37. Latitude E6440

  38. Latitude E6500

  39. Latitude E6510

  40. Latitude E6520

  41. Latitude E6530

  42. Latitude E7240

  43. Latitude E7250

  44. Latitude E7270

  45. Latitude E7440

  46. Latitude E7450

  47. Latitude E7470

Next Steps

The rest of OSDDrivers will detail how I try to manage my Drivers to overcome my challenges

NextRelease Notes

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