Monday, October 20, 2014

Adding a Driver to the Windows DriverStore

Drivers not stored in the Windows DriverStore require administrative permissions to install.

Driver was retrieved from http://catalog.update.microsoft.com  

Add this to the computers DriverStore staging area via PnPUtil.

  • What is a DriverStore? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744517(v=ws.10).aspx
  • What is PnpUtil? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732408.aspx#BKMK_Anchor2 

"Drivers that display the Designed for Windows logo are provided as .cab files. You must expand the .cab file before you install the .inf file if you're using DISM for the installation."

Step By Step: How to use PnPUtil.exe \ Install this Driver

  1. Connect to the users computer local command line via "PSexec.exe \\%targetcomputername% cmd.exe"
  2. Browse to the users computer via file explorer (File Browser Window: "\\%targetcomputername%\c$\" )
  3. Copy the extracted contents of the .cab file attached to this ticket to a temporary folder on the target computer (For Example: C:\TempDriver), retain folder structure.
  4. On the command line window run the following "pnputil.exe -i -a c:\DriverTemp\*.inf"

The drivers are now safely stored in the Windows DriverStore and will install when the user plugs in the device.

The user will not need a permissions increase to achieve this.