Automated device driver management

• US 20070101342A1
• Filed: 10/31/2005
• Published: 05/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Baron, Anthony, Flegg, Brett, Drew, Daniel
• Application Number:
  US11/263,084
• Publication Number:
  US 20070101342A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/321
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

Techniques for importing, managing, and deploying drivers are provided. When a machine is being re-imaged, a process on the machine scans for hardware devices on the machine and generates a list of hardware device IDs and compatible hardware device IDs for each scanned hardware device. The process then formulates a request for device driver package IDs corresponding to device drivers that are compatible with the hardware and compatible hardware device IDs, and sends the request to a management server. The process receives a list of compatible device driver package IDs in response to the request and accesses the device driver files from an appropriate content server.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for adding device drivers, the method comprising:

installing a minimal operating system on a computer system, the minimal operating system operable to create a pre-installation environment on the computer system;

creating the pre-installation environment on the computer system; and

within the pre-installation environment,

scanning for hardware components on the computer system;

generating a list of hardware device IDs for the scanned hardware components;

obtaining a list of device driver packages compatible with the hardware device IDs in the list of hardware device IDs; and

configuring an offline operating system on the computer system to consider using the device drivers in the device driver packages.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of compatible device driver IDs is obtained from a remote server.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the device driver packages are obtained from a content server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of hardware device IDs includes compatible hardware device IDs.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

within the pre-installation environment,

determining whether an obtained device driver package is for a boot critical driver; and

upon determining the obtained device driver package is for a boot critical driver, installing the boot critical driver on the offline computer system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of hardware device IDs is ranked.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the offline operating system is configured to consider using the device drivers in its plug-and-play process.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the device driver packages is a WINDOWS driver package.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the minimal operating system is installed over a network.

10. A method in a computer system for adding a device driver to a driver catalog, the method comprising:

receiving a manufacturer'"'"'s device driver package for a device driver;

parsing installation instructions provided with the device driver package to determine metadata associated with the device driver package;

obtaining any additional metadata to associate with the device driver package;

saving the metadata associated with the device driver package in a driver catalog; and

assigning the device driver package to at least one content server.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the device driver package is a WINDOWS driver package.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the metadata and additional metadata are used to determine whether the device driver package should be downloaded to a target machine.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the additional metadata is obtained from an administrator.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the additional metadata includes an indication of a target machine manufacturer that the device driver package is appropriate for.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the additional metadata includes an indication of a target machine model that the device driver package is appropriate for.

16. A method in a computer system for providing device driver package IDs compatible with hardware device IDs, the method comprising:

receiving a request for device driver packages compatible with hardware device IDs in a list of hardware device IDs, the request including a description of a target machine;

for each hardware device ID in the list of hardware device IDs,

obtaining device driver packages compatible with the hardware device ID;

adding device driver package IDs corresponding to the obtained device driver packages to a list of compatible device driver package IDs; and

providing the list of compatible device driver package IDs as a response to the request.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the list of compatible device driver IDs is ranked.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the device driver IDs are obtained by querying a database.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the database is a driver catalog.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the database comprises metadata associated with device driver packages corresponding to the device driver IDs.