Silent software-first driver installation in 9x

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From: Todd Greer (todd.mpddd_at_tsg-software.com)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 04:45:12 GMT

I've been struggling to understand how to silently install drivers in Windows
9x, and would greatly appreciate any pointers or explanation.

Specifically, I have a wireless network pc card driver and some USB
device drivers that I need to install when the user runs my setup
app. If the user puts the cd in before the hardware, the goal is to
not ask the user any questions when they put the hardware in.

The documentation that I've been able to find directs me to use
SetupCopyOEMInf, then mentions that it's not available on 9x. I've
seen suggestions that copying the inf, cat, and sys files to the right
places will work, though this did not seem to work for me (perhaps I
mistook which were the right directories).

For each driver, I have a sys file and an inf file, and most of them
are signed, and thus have a cat file. The platforms I care about are
98SE, ME, 2k, and XP.

On 98SE and ME, should I:

- copy the files to the right directories?
- call InstallHinfSection on the inf file?
- call a combination of SetupDi functions?
- something else?

The inf files naturally have CopyFiles sections that put the sys files
where they belong--there is lots of documentation in the ddk and
elsewhere on what to do in the inf file. It's the bit before the inf
file is being parsed that seems to escape mention. Is there some
wonderfully clear documentation on this that I've been unable to find?

BTW, am I correct in my understanding that, on 2k/XP, I copy the files
somewhere, then call SetupCopyOEMInf on the inf file?

Thank you very much for your help. 

-- 
Todd Greer	<todd.mpddd@tsg-software.com>
President and Founder, TSG Software

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