The Auto Apply Drivers task sequence step allows you to match and install drivers as part of an operating system deployment.
The Auto Apply Drivers task sequence action performs the following steps:
- Scans the hardware and finds the Plug-n-Play IDs for all
devices present on the system.
- Sends the list of devices and their Plug-n-Play IDs to the
management point. The management point returns a list of compatible
drivers from the driver catalog for each device. The management
point considers all drivers regardless of what driver package they
might be in. Only drivers tagged with the specified driver category
and drivers that are not marked as disabled are considered.
- For each device, the client picks the best driver that is
appropriate for the operating system on which it is being deployed
and that is on an accessible distribution point.
- The selected driver or drivers are downloaded from a
distribution point and staged on the target operating system.
- For image-based installations, the drivers are placed into the
newly deployed operating system image and Windows is configured
with where to find the drivers on any Plug-n-Play scan. On Vista
and later, the drivers are placed into the operating system driver
store.
- For setup-based installations, Windows Setup is configured with
where to find the drivers.
- For image-based installations, the drivers are placed into the
newly deployed operating system image and Windows is configured
with where to find the drivers on any Plug-n-Play scan. On Vista
and later, the drivers are placed into the operating system driver
store.
- When the Setup Windows and ConfigMgr task sequence
action runs and Windows initially boots, it will find the drivers
staged by this action.
 Important |
|---|
| The Auto Apply Drivers task sequence step cannot be used with stand-alone media because Windows Setup will have no connection to the Configuration Manager 2007 site. |
 Note |
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| When deploying pre-Vista operating systems, if the image already has a driver installed for a device on the computer, the Auto Apply Drivers action, the Apply Driver Package action, or any new drivers installed by a task sequence action will not be processed. To ensure the new drivers will be installed, in the sysprep.inf file, set the UpdateInstalledDrivers option in the “Unattended” section to ‘Yes.’ For additional installation about deploying drivers, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=134006. |
The Auto Apply Drivers task sequence action can be run only in the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) and will not run in a standard operating system For information about task sequence variables for this task sequence action, see Auto Apply Drivers Task Sequence Action Variables.
Auto Apply Drivers contains the following elements:
- Name
- A short user-defined name that describes the action taken in this step.
- Description
- More detailed information about the action taken in this step.
- Install only the best matched compatible drivers
- Specifies that the task sequence step will install only the best matched driver for each hardware device detected.
- Install all compatible drivers
- Specifies that the task sequence step will install all compatible drivers for each hardware device detected and allow Windows setup to choose the best driver. This option takes more network bandwidth and disk space because it downloads more drivers, but it may result in a better driver being selected.
- Consider drivers from all categories
- Specifies that the task sequence action will search all available driver categories for appropriate device drivers.
- Limit driver matching to only consider drivers in selected categories
- Specifies that the task sequence action will search for device drivers in specified driver categories for the appropriate device drivers.
- Do unattended installation of unsigned drivers on versions of Windows where this is allowed
- Allows this task sequence action to install unsigned Windows
device drivers.
Important
This option does not apply to operating systems where driver signing policy cannot be configured.