Adding drivers to wim file

If  you’re trying to set up a boot wim file for Windows Deployment Services or creating a WIN PE boot on a USB key then you may find that you will need to install the corrent NIC drivers for it to work.

Here are some steps that you can follow if you need to inject drivers to your wim file

1.  Install Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0, download link
2. Install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), download link
3. Once you have installed Windows Automated Installation Kit, navigate to the C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86 folder, right-click wimfltr.inf and Select Install.
4. Create a folder D:\VistaMount
5. Run cmd – command line
6. cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86
7. Mount wim file with the following command, imagex /mountrw “source location\wim file” 2 d:\vistamount

Note:  Make sure that you use the 2 in the command to specify the second image of the boot.wim file.  If you don’t, you may recieve problems with detecting the network drivers when booting into WinPE.  This is a known problem with the new HP DC7900 Desktops.

8. Download the drivers from the manufacturer and extract them to D:\drivers
9. Run cmd – command line
10. cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools
11. peimg /inf=”driver source location\inf file” d:\vistamount
12. unmount and save changes to wim file with following command, imagex /unmount /commit d:\vistamount

Note: Make sure you use the /commit parameter to ensure that changes are saved to the wim file.