Capture Operating System Image
Article by Xiaohe
Auto Apply The auto apply step is used to stage
compatible device on targeted systems using that have been imported to the driver catalog. When this step runs, it downloads for every device that is present on the system by matching their plug n
play hardware IDs to those found in the driver catalog. As long as a matching driver has been added to a driver package that exists on a distribution point, the driver can be downloaded successfully. On operating systems prior to Windows
Vista/Server 2008, the are downloaded to the system drive to a folder called “.” The devicepath value in the registry is updated to point to each driver in the folder so that Windows will know where to find the correct during the installation phase. For Windows Vista systems and higher, the are placed into the driver store. Note that are not installed until the mini-setup phase of Sysprep, which occurs during the Setup Windows and
ConfigMgr step.
The auto apply step is nice because driver matching happens automatically without having to worry about specific driver packages that apply to specific systems. This works well as long as you have tested each system and verified that the driver installation occurred successfully. Unfortunately, there are situations where this step does not work correctly, causing major issues while deploying operating systems. The issues that can cause an auto apply driver step to fail are listed next.
media–If the Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure is not available, the auto apply will fail. If you areusing this step with media, the step will fail due to the lack of network connectivity to the site. We will discuss media later in this chapter.
Driver matching uncertainty–Althou gh the auto apply driver step is responsible for determining which should be staged locally, it does not actually apply the . Windows does this during the Sysprep mini-setup phase by matching the best for the device. If multiple network card from the same manufacturer have been imported to the driver catalog, for example, multiple versions may be downloaded to a computer with similar hardware. Unfortunately,
Windows may not be able to determine the “correct” driver and may install a driver that has not been certified for the device. Although the driver may work, it might not perform as expected due to the wrong driver being installed.
Driver additions–Once
you have tested and verified that your systems install the correct using the auto apply step, you may need to add additional for new systems. Once a new driver has been imported to the driver catalog, you will have to verify and test each driver for each system all over again since you don’t necessarily know which driver will be used. This can get very tedious especially if multiple are added to the driver catalog frequently.

