Configure XP for Corporate Image Thread

[Grimmda]

I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot of these types of threads so I figured I'd rope them all into one.

I've done a lot of tweaking to my XP/SP2 Image that will eventually land on as many as 4,000 PC's at my company. I'll get into a few of them as I have more time but for now onto my latest need.

I'd like to remove the default print drivers that come with XP. We have a few odd ball printers we use and I'll manually have to install those drivers but anything other than the HP ones I would like to remove. (As we mainly use the HP printers around the office)

Keep in mind this would have to be a 3rd party application free method of removing these drivers so I can't load some sort of app that hacks and slices the image and then deploy it. I want a nice clean way of doing it.

I've done a bunch of research and believe they are found in the driver.cab file but I wanted to get some dialogue going here to see if anyone has toyed around with this or if they have time would LIKE to toy around with it.

If not, I'm sure I'll either find it myself (or not and give up), post the results here and continue the thread with other XP Tweaking for corporate environments.

So those of you in corporate IT bust out your thinking caps, take an hour away from the Forum and get to tweaking .

 

[djnes]

take an hour away from the Forum

What???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I know some guys that create the images we use, and since we are HP, every printer we have is an HP. Just to confirm, you basically want a way to make a custom drivers.cab file, that contain only HP Printers...as far as the list of printer drivers goes?

 

[Grimmda]

HAHA Yeah I know how horrible!!!

What???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Just to confirm, you basically want a way to make a custom drivers.cab file, that contain only HP Printers...as far as the list of printer drivers goes?

Hey if I could get just the HP ones and a few others I add into it I would be happy.
I've done another 2 hours of surfing on the subject and I'm about to beat my head on the desk over it. I think the drivers.cab file itself has WAY more than just printers. Infact I know that cause I can go into it and look at some of the .sys files and find way more drivers.

I guess I'm just curious if I could get the "Add Printer Wizard" to only show some HP printers and a few others we use here. You'd think it would be somewhat easy but Nooooo. I wish some know-it-all would step in and lay the smackdown on the subject. Even that would make me happy.

 

[Treyshadow]

OK, I understand what you want.

I have created the image for a company with 8,000+ computers for 4 years, and now work in a group creating the image for a fortune 100 company with over 100,000 computers.

I believe what you want is possible, but removing the drivers that exist by default from Microsoft is an extreme chore. You literally will not find any easy method to isolate just the printer drivers, but it is possible.

You can however just add your printer drivers to the XP install disc via slipstream so your printer drivers would be available without a disc. This is really no different than adding drivers for a SATA controller.

 

[br0adband]

Pretty much all the printer drivers are contained in the driver.cab file; drivers for everything. The simplest way to get rid of just those drivers and nothing else (for the moment, so just bear with me), is to use nLite to make a custom i386 directory that contains everything a normal one does but no printer drivers whatsoever. You have to be careful if you choose to use nLite however; if you select the wrong option for removal you could end up totally printerless - one option removes just the printer drivers while another option removes the ability to add printers at all, not even for something like a PDF printer.

nLite can easily be used to modify only that aspect of the i386 directory and the XP installation files. You can then (in the same operation) integrate drivers for any HP printers you have and only those printers. nLite makes all this kind of stuff really simple to do.

One word of caution: You realize that by creating a custom XP image in this manner (modifying the original i386 directory) is a violation of the EULA and technically would disqualify you and your organization from any applicable technical support from Microsoft, right? Just wanted to toss that out there so it's in the open. It's nice to create a custom installer/image for corporate situations, but modifying the i386 directory is where the problems come from.

Just my $.02.
bb

 

[Grimmda]

Ahhh haaa Great info br0adband!

I think I'll leave them alone, because it's a low priority request. I have other fish to fry.