Boot-critical drivers appear on the Windows image before Setup installs that image. The Windows Setup process applies the Windows image. When you right-click DevicePaths and select Insert New PathAndCredentials into Windows PE, Windows PE processes other Windows PE customizations that the answer file specifies. Windows loads boot-critical drivers that Windows PE requires to access the local disk and network. Windows stages the Windows PE drivers in the RAM driver store. This method initializes Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and processes Windows PE settings from the answer file, as follows: Add Drivers to New Installations (windowsPE)įor new installations, you add drivers during the windowsPE configuration pass. For more information about how to modify drivers on an offline Windows image by using an answer file, and also other methods of adding drivers to and removing drivers from an existing image, see Add and Remove Drivers to an Offline Windows Image. For example, you can add the Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE component during the offlineServicing configuration pass, add or remove the driver paths, and then specify the name of the answer file. You can service offline images in several ways. You can also modify existing images and add and remove drivers. To do this in new installations, you add the Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationWinPE component during the windowsPE configuration pass, add the driver paths, and then specify the answer file. You can add drivers to Windows Setup by using an answer file that specifies the path to the driver files.

To install Windows on some hardware designs, you may need to add device drivers to Windows Setup.

Win 8 installation media