Determining Which Method to Use to Install a Device Driver

Hardware manufacturers release device drivers in one of two forms:

· As a package that you can extract and that contains .inf files used to import the driver into the Deployment Workbench

· As an application that you must install using traditional application installation processes

Device driver packages that can be extracted to access .inf files can use the MDT automatic driver detection and installation process by first importing the driver into the Out-of-Box Drivers node in the Deployment Workbench.

Device driver packages that cannot be extracted to isolate .inf files or those that do not work correctly without first being installed using an application installer such as an MSI or Setup.exe file can use the MDT Install Application feature and install the device driver during the deployment process just as for any normal application.