How can I enter an OEMPnPDriversPath longer than 256 characters in the Windows 2000 unattend.txt file?

John Savill

May 5, 2002

1 Min Read
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A. By default, Win2K limits the OEMPnPDriversPath in the unattend.txt file to 256 characters, which can prevent the OS from automatically installing some drivers. To work around this limitation, you can modify the .inf file that stores the default paths for drivers and manually add extra paths by performing the following steps:

  1. Open the hivesft.inf file on the Win2K distribution server.

  2. Search for the line

    HKLM,"SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion","DevicePath",0x00020002,"%SystemRoot%inf"

  3. Append the extra paths to this line, separating each path by a semicolon (;). For example, to add the paths

    C:driversgui, C:driversusb, C:driverskeyboard, and C:driversaudio,

    change the line to read

    HKLM,"SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion","DevicePath",0x00020002,"%SystemRoot%inf";c:driversgui;c:driversusb;c:driverskeyboard;c:driversaudio

  4. Save the hivesft.inf file.

About the Author

John Savill

John Savill

https://savilltech.net

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