Configuration Manager - Dynamic Driver Categories
When injecting drivers using the "Auto-apply Drivers" task you can filter the drivers that are injected based on the hardware type. The MDT documentation identifies a method of doing this but it his requires an update to the task sequence every time you add a new category (model type).
The following process will allow you to dynamically specify the a category based on the models WMI identifier. This means that you will not need to add a new "Auto-apply Drivers" drivers each time you add a new model type.
So how does this work?
The “OSDAutoApplyDriverCategoryList” property in the task sequence is used to determine which categories to use in the “Auto-Apply Drivers” task. So all we have to do is override the categories configured through the task sequence editor. However, the value you would need to set is not obvious. Here’s a sample:
DriverCategories:3be2057f-1508-44a8-8325-0f5ab444b422,DriverCategories:bf594013-a680-4319-91bf-809f5502f620
These happen to be the GUIDs assigned to the two categories I’ve defined in the apply-drivers task.
So the trick to creating dynamic categories is to run a script that takes the WMI category and determines the associated GUID. Then we simply update the “OSDAutoApplyDriverCategoryList” property with this GUID, easy :).
Now we know how this works lets look at how you can implement it.
1. Import the drivers for your new model into ConfigMgr
2. Assign the drivers to a category that's name based on the WMI model value. The category name must match the model value returned by WMI. I have found the simplest way to determine this value this is via a WMIC query.
The following steps detail how to perform a WMI, ensure that these steps are run on the new model NOT the server:
a. Open a Command Prompt
b. Type WMIC
c. To determine the Model, type CSProduct Get Name
3. Update the attached script replacing the following values:
sProviderServer = "SERVER" - The ConfigMgr server
sSiteCode = "X01" - The site code of the ConfigMgr server
sUsername = "domain\user" - Credentials required for a remote connection to the ConfigMgr provider.
sPassword = "Password"
4. Create a package using the attached script.
5. Create a program with the command line cscript zCFG-UpdateDriverCategories.vbs
6. Add a new task to your task sequence that runs the program. This task must run before the "Auto-apply Drivers" task.
This post was contributed by Ben Hunter a Consultant with Microsoft Services New Zealand.