Overview
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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
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
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
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
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
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
Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme (7404)
Latitude 5285
Latitude 5290 2-in-1
Latitude 5414
Latitude 5480
Latitude 5490
Latitude 5491
Latitude 7200 2-in-1
Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet
Latitude 7280
Latitude 7290
Latitude 7390
Latitude 7400
Latitude 7414
Latitude 7480
Latitude D620
Latitude D630
Latitude E4200
Latitude E4310
Latitude E5430 non-vPro
Latitude E5440
Latitude E5450
Latitude E5470
Latitude E5520
Latitude E5530 non-vPro
Latitude E5540
Latitude E5550
Latitude E5570
Latitude E6220
Latitude E6230
Latitude E6320
Latitude E6330
Latitude E6400
Latitude E6410
Latitude E6420
Latitude E6430
Latitude E6440
Latitude E6500
Latitude E6510
Latitude E6520
Latitude E6530
Latitude E7240
Latitude E7250
Latitude E7270
Latitude E7440
Latitude E7450
Latitude E7470
The rest of OSDDrivers will detail how I try to manage my Drivers to overcome my challenges
