Are you having a problem getting a new workstation to build with a custom driver that you have added to Build Manager?

I had encountered a problem with a DELL D510 laptop that would use the Audio driver that had been added to the Drivers list.  The result was the laptop BSOD during the XP build process.  Some machines would BSOD on each reboot and display an error about PORTCLS.SYS.

My Boss and I spent a total of 2 days between us trying to work out the workstation build process and to figure out why our driver was not being used.

After a number of attempts we finally issolated the problem as being a faulty .INF file, although comparing the file with other standard RM files didn't reveal much as to why the driver didn't work.

We doctored a build disk to stop at a certain point so that we could run through the process manually, displaying information to screen.  We also removed all of the default RM drivers so that our driver had to be processed.

We found that the driver was indeed being processed, but was being ignored, again indicating that there was something not quite right with the STAC97.INF.  So we edited the file using DOS edit, and this revealed the cause of the problem.

The INF file was encoded with the UNICODE character set.  So it displayed fine in Notepad, but was gibberish to the DOS programs that are used in the build process.

So - long story....  Open the INF file with Notepad, then File - Save As.  Change the encoding to ANSI and save then overwrite the original file.  Start the build on the machine and the correct driver should now be used.

So if your driver did not work check that it isn't a Unicode file.  If it isn't unicode - then you may need to log a call with your RM support.