How to Add Driver Files to the VMM Library
Updated: May 13, 2016
Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
You can use the following procedures to add driver files to the library in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), and to assign tags to the drivers. After you add driver files to the VMM library, when you configure a host profile or (as of System Center 2012 R2) a physical computer profile, you can specify the driver files. Then VMM can install the specified drivers when it installs the operating system on a physical computer.
In the host profile or physical computer profile, you can select to filter the drivers by tags, or you can select to filter drivers with matching Plug and Play (PnP) IDs on the physical computer. If you select to filter the drivers by tags, VMM determines the drivers to apply by matching the tags that you assign to the drivers in the library to the tags that you assign in the profile. If you select to filter drivers with matching PnP IDs, you do not have to complete the “To assign custom tags to the driver files” procedure in this topic.
Note
These procedures are optional.
Account requirements To add driver files to the library, you must be a member of the Administrator user role, or a member of the Delegated Administrator user role where the management scope includes the library server where the library share is located.
To add driver files to the library
Locate a driver package that you want to add to the library.
For example, you may want to add a driver package for a network adapter driver.
In the library share that is located on the library server that is associated with the group where you want to deploy the physical computers, create a folder to store the drivers, and then copy the driver package to the folder.
For example, create a folder that is named Drivers in the library share, and then copy the driver package for a network adapter driver (in its own folder) to the Drivers folder.
Important
We strongly recommend that you create a separate folder for each driver package, and that you do not mix resources in the driver folders. If you include other library resources such as .iso images, .vhd files or scripts with an .inf file name extension in the same folder, the VMM library server will not discover those resources. Also, when you delete an .inf driver package from the library, VMM deletes the entire folder where the driver .inf file resides.
In the VMM console, open the Library workspace.
In the Library pane, expand Library Servers, expand the library server where the share is located, right-click the share, and then click Refresh.
After the library refreshes, the folder that you created to store the drivers appears.
To assign custom tags to the driver files
In the Library pane, expand the folder that you created to store the drivers in the previous procedure, and then click the folder that contains the driver package.
For example, expand the Drivers folder, and then click the folder that you created for the network adapter driver package.
The driver .inf file of type Driver Package is listed in the Physical Library Objects pane.
In the Physical Library Objects pane, right-click the driver .inf file, and then click Properties.
In the Driver File Name Properties dialog box, in the Custom tags box, enter custom tags separated by a semi-colon, or click Select to assign available tags or to create and assign new ones. If you click Select, and then click New Tag, you can change the name of the tag after you click OK.
For example, if you added a network adapter driver file, you could create a tag that is named ServerModel NetworkAdapterModel, where ServerModel is the server model and NetworkAdapterModel is the network adapter model.
When you are finished, click OK.
See Also
Adding Physical Computers as Hyper-V Hosts or as Scale-Out File Servers in VMM Overview
How to Create a Host or a Physical Computer Profile to Provision a Hyper-V Host in VMM
How to Associate a VMM Library Server with a Host Group