When I learned WDS and the Windows Automated Installation Kit which were both quite new in Windows Server 2008 R2 at the time, I contented myself with getting 90% of the right way to a completely automated build, as the extra effort to get from 90 to 100% mostly re: drivers wouldn’t have paid enough immediate dividends and we had to start capitalising on some of the other wins of our new environment. As is usually the case, we never got back to that remaining 10%, but it’s become more of an issue in recent months, as we’ve added a few Dell Latitude E6410 and Lenovo W520 laptops – both of which had community drivers that the Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 boot images didn’t realize. Unfortunately the TechNet assistance on adding drivers to boot images is doubtful to me anyway, so I’m contributing this quick post to try to clarify the problem that we had and the easy step by step answer. I am having a controversy with a Lenovo T420 when trying to catch a picture. In the past when it’d boot to Windows PE to start the catch image process, I would do shift + f10 to bring up a command prompt and verify that the device has an IP in the Windows PE session.
If it didn’t I would go to the D:SWTools folder and skim for the Ethernet drivers and set up them. Then I would add the drivers to the suitable Capture Image listed in the Boot Images folder in the WDS console. But for some reason with the T420 even after operating the install of the application, the driving force is not put in accurately and I still can’t get an IP in the Windows PE session.
