DriverPacks.net Forum / 3rd Party DriverPacks...

Introduction
So you are using my DriverPacks, but want to make some additions for yourself? Because you have a VERY special driver, or just because I haven't added this particular driver YET? Well, then this small tutorial will show you how you can make your own DriverPack, you'll see, it's very easy, all the hard work is put in the DriverPacks BASE that does almost all work for you!

Note: this works only for drivers that don't need anything special, i.e. that only need: to be copied to the systemdrive and the necessary entries in the winnt.sif file.



1. Get the drivers
Obviously, you have to obtain your drivers first. First check the site of the manufacturer of your hardware, if you can't find the driver there, try to find it with Google.



2. Extract the drivers
a) Now we have to get the drivers themselves OUT of the installer/archive. Personally I prefer 7-zip to do that, but any (well, almost any) archiving program should be capable of doing this. Right-click the driver archive or setup and choose the option "Extract files...", or something similar. Choose a folder to extract them to and that's that.

b) This part might scare of some beginning users, but it's definetely worth it in the end. Instead of just using everything you extracted, we have to select the files we need, in other words: removing the garbage... So how do you do that? In 95% of the cases this works: open the ''.inf'' file of your driver, then search for the section that's marked by ''[SourceDisksFiles]'' and make sure you KEEP all the files listed here!

Note: if you don't want to void the WHQL signing, do NOT remove the included .cat files!




3. Creating the DriverPack
a) Now it's VERY easy: just create a ''D'' folder and put your drivers in any subfolder below it. Any subfolder, but I recommend you use as short names as possible for these subfolders: else the ''OemPnPDriversPath'' in your ''winnt.sif'' file might become to long (the maximum is 4096 characters, for ''winnt.exe''/''winnt32.exe'' initiated installations it's even only 1024 characters!) and corrupt your installation! After creating the desired folder structure, move your drivers into the correct subfolders (the extracted files, the ''.inf'' files, not the archives or setups, remember?). So create it like this:

Code:

+ D|--+ 3|--+ DriverPack root dir|--+ sub1|--+ subsubA|--+ subsubB|--+ sub2|--+ subsubX

A real world example:

Code:

+ D                                                     => root directory for ALL DriverPacks|--+ 3                                                  => root directory for 3rd party DriverPacks|--+ B                                                 => *B*roadband|--+ M                                                => *M*otorola|--+ 1                                               => first Motorola broadband driver|--+ 2                                               => second Motorola broandband driver|--+ n                                               => n-th Motorola broandband driver|--+ W                                               => *W*hatever|--+ RoxorBroadBandModem                             => you can use names too if you prefer that

Note: in the past you didn't have to use the "3" subdirectory. This is now a requirement, to make the KTD functionality compatible with the 3pdps

b) You're almost there! Right-click the "D" folder and select Add files to archive..., then you have to choose your settings:
  *Archive (file name): DP_myDriverPacksNameWithoutSpaces_wnt5_x86-32_YY.MM.DD.subversion.7z, where Y stands for year (last two figures), M for months (leading zero, if applicable) and D for day (leading zero, if applicable). The subversion is optional, ususally only required when you create more than one version of the same pack on the same day
  *Archive format: ''7z''
  *Compression level: ''Ultra'' (For the best result, you can choose a lower compression level if you want.)
  *Compression method: ''LZMA'' by default. (Don't change this.)
  *Dictionary size: ''32 MB'' by default. If you choose a higher value, you'll get a better compression ratio, at the cost of more CPU time needed. It will also consume more RAM, both for compression as well as decompressing.
If your system's RAM allows it, bump it up as far as possible for best compression results.
  *Word size: ''256'' by default. Changing this value does not have any noticable effect on the size of the compressed file.
  *Solid Archive: Definately enable this to achive optimal compression results. It means you won't be able to extract single files without decompressing the entire archive, but we aren't going to do that anyway.
*Multithreading: Utilizies the second or further cores of you CPU (SMP).
Definately lowers compressing time on systems that support it. It's disabled by default on others. Does not have any effect on the compression size.



3. Using the DriverPack

And as last, using the DriverPack. In fact it's even ridiculous that I added this paragraph... So easy... But here it goes: the last step is putting your own DriverPack in the "3rd party DriverPacks" directory of the DriverPacks BASE. Then all you have to do is run the batch files, choose the method you wish to use and that's that! No more "winnt.sif" editing, no more "txtsetup.sif" hacking, NOTHING else you have to do!  Since you closed the other sticky (http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=392), I'm posting this in here *ahem*

Anyway, since the MD5 checksum is mandatory (as it was not in italics), you might also want to include a guide how to obtain the checksum using a Win System.
I'm sure there's a lot of users not knowing how to and the only thing I know about it is that it is not possible to do so without 3rd party software. http://beeblebrox.org/hashtab/ 

RogueSpear wrote:

http://beeblebrox.org/hashtab/

Indeed the best way there is

The reason why I'm making it MANDATORY is simple: since everyone can access the ftp, anyone could replace the original files by ones that include malware (or even just hack .inf files to set a certain homepage, for example). Therefore it's very important that these are included.   

Can you be more specific on how exactly name the directory structure.
If I want to make a Printer pack for Canon it has to be like this :

Code:

+ D|--+ 3|--+ P|--+ C|--+ A|--+ B|--+ C

In This case I choose "P" for Printer ... but this "P" could be used by another DP for anything else.
"S" could be used for Scanners ... but if I have a multifunction printer-scanner (all-in-one), where do I put the driver ?

Any (better) ideas ?