MDT Driver injection: How to import drivers in .exe format into Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

The INF files are what Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) needs for driver injection. Many drivers are distributed as packages, which come in the form of an executable different from the Cabinet Files (CAB). Since the drivers are available in executable (.exe), this cannot be uploaded directly into MDT. If an executable is the only way a driver is available, it must first be extracted using any of the utilities out there before it is imported into MDT. You may be interested in some other articles: How to delete obsolete drivers from the Driver Store in Windows 10, how to rename a Printer in Windows 10, and how to determine the version and type of a Printer Driver (Printer Driver Information).

Problem

Unable to upload (import) Driver downloaded in .exe form into MDT. It is work noting that some major OEMs like Dell, HP, and Microsoft make downloads of model-specific drivers available on their sites. Dell hardware drivers come in the form of a CAB file which can be imported directly into MDT and this eliminates this problem associated with .exe drivers. Please see these related guides: How to specify a persistent default printer via the Windows Registry, how to add Print Drivers with PowerShell, RUNDLL32, and VBScript in Windows 10 and how to remove a Printer from Windows 10 via PowerShell, Windows registry, and Print Management.

Solution

You will have to extract the contents of the executables or zip files and then import them. In this way, you will be able to import your Drivers into MDT. See the following guide on how to install and configure MDT, see the following guide on “how to configure and deploy Windows using MDT, and WDS in Windows 10, and “what is ADK, MDT, SCCM, Intune, Autopilot, and WSUS“. For more articles relating to MDT, see the following link.

Step 1: Now we will proceed with the download of an HP Printer Driver from this link as shown below.

After downloading the Driver, you will have to unzip it with any of your favorable compression methods such as 7-Zip or WinRAR, etc. to extract the content of the .exe file

Click on Ok as shown below to continue the process of extraction

Now, the executable has been extracted and can now be imported into MDT. Here is the content of the extracted HP Driver.

Step 2: Now you should be able to export the Printer Driver into MDT.
– Click on your Deployment Share
– Expand the Out-of-Box-Driver
– Create a fold and Import the Drivers into it or “import your drivers on the fly into the Out-of-Box-Driver folder”.

Note: For best practice and segregation purposes, I would like to create a new folder and then import these drivers into it under the Out-of-Box-Driver folder.

Next, click on Import driver under the Action Pane or right-click on the created folder and select import drivers. Work through the steps, they are very easy.
– Select the entire root folder of the extracted driver “OJ3830_Basicx64_1119” as shown in the figure above.

Step 3 – Optional step: If you would like to associate the Printer driver with a selected OS’ you would need to create a Selection Profile.

What is a Selection Profile?

It is simply some selected folders across applications, operating systems, out-of-box drivers, packages, task sequences, and offline media profiles. Selection profiles are steps ahead in driver control. They are a pre-defined selection of drivers that may encompass an individual model, or manufacturer. MDT ships with a few pre-defined selection profiles, but more can be created to suit any need.

To create a selection profile, kindly follow the steps discussed below.

Click on your deployment share and expand the Advanced Configuration menu. click on create Selection Profile and follow the other steps. These steps are very easy to integrate.

Select the right folder to intergrade, if you have many Drivers Folder structures, you will have to select one from the list.
– Click on next till it finishes.

Step 4: You may additionally want to add a new sequence in the Task Sequence in order to inject the printer drivers only. To do this;

Right-click on the Task Sequence, and select Properties. We will have to add a new step to inject the Printer driver in the Pre-install stage,
– Click on Add
– Select Inject Driver,
– Enter a Name
– In the choose selection profile, select the selection profile created above.
– Select install all drivers from the selection profile.
– Click on Ok.

Note: These steps do not require you to update your deployment share. See this guide for how to disable the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Task Sequence property sheet.

However, I hope you found this blog post helpful. Furthermore, Please let me know in the comment session if you have any questions.