Patent ID: 8181186

Claim:
A method of organizing and automating a Windows PC hardware independent disk imaging deployment process, for Windows operating system based computers, that uses a server that (i) has an inventoried database of computer PC hardware data that can be electronically analyzed to enable computers which were inventoried for their hardware device data to be logically organized into discrete hardware classes and facilitates adding, gathering and staging of device driver packs, and (ii) acts as a staging and distribution point for those driver packs, comprising steps of: a. electronically inventorying a set of computers and analyzing the database of computer PC hardware inventory data, and grouping the computers into compatibility classes, each compatibility class having systems with an administrator configurable scope of all deployment-relevant hardware devices in common, thus providing a representation of actual discrete hardware platforms that can be used in disk imaging-based deployment of Windows operating systems to computers of each compatibility class; b. electronically designating target compatibility class representative computers and harvesting compatibility class native sets of drivers from those class representative computers by electronically transmitting the device drivers from the compatibility class representative computers to the server and/or allowing administrator addition of original equipment manufacturer supplied drivers to supplement or replace collected drivers on the server and transmit other hardware related data from the compatibility class representative computers to the database of computer PC hardware inventory data; and c. electronically configuring deployment jobs that will first apply a Windows disk image to a computer, that is targeted for deployment, and then based on the compatibility class membership of the targeted computer and the compatibility class associated drivers maintained by the server electronically inject from the server correct device drivers into the newly imaged computer's file system (before it is booted into Windows) so that the newly imaged computer's Plug and Play mechanism can load the drivers and successfully boot into Windows with it's class of hardware supported.