You can use filters to map client computers to the packages in a driver group. The filters define which clients will install the drivers. For example, you can configure drivers to be installed based on the hardware of the client (for example, manufacturer or BIOS vendor) and the attributes of the Windows image that is selected during the installation (for example, the version or edition). In addition, you can configure whether clients install all packages in a driver group, or only the drivers that match the installed hardware on the client. For instructions on how to configure these filters in order to deploy driver packages, see Deploying Driver Packages.

Note

A package can be in many driver groups, but it must be in at least one group in order to be available to clients.

To create a driver group, right-click the Drivers node and click Add Driver Group. To modify the filters for a driver group, right-click the group and click Modify Filters for this Group.

Note the following functionality when adding filters to a driver group:

  • The filter value must exactly match the client hardware or the install image specifications. The two available operators for filters are Equal to or Not equal to. Therefore, if the value you specify is one character off (for example, if you omit a period) the filters will not match the clients as intended. For this reason, we recommend that you create multiple filter values to account for all cases. For example, create filter values for Fabrikam, Inc., Fabrikam, and so on. Note that the filter is not case sensitive, and leading and trailing spaces are ignored.

  • If you do not add any filters, all clients will have access to the drivers in the group. If you add one or more filters, clients must match all filters in order to have access to the drivers. In addition:

    • If the operator of a filter is set to Equal to, then the filter will match if a client’s value is equal to one or more values in the list.

      Example: If you add Chassis Type|Equal to|Mini Tower, Laptop, then all mini tower and laptop computers will match, but those computers with other chassis types will not match.

    • If the operator is set to Not Equal to, then the filter will match only if the client’s value is not equal to any of the values in the list. That is, only those clients that have a value that is different from all the values in the filter will match.

      Example: If you add UUID|Not equal to|<UUID 1>, <UUID 2>, then all clients except for the two specified computers will match.

For more examples, see Examples.

In this topic

Client hardware filters

You can add client hardware filters to a driver group if you want clients with certain hardware to receive the drivers in a group. Note that drivers are automatically filtered by the architecture of the client.

Filter type Accepted Values Description and Examples

Manufacturer

String

The name of the manufacturer as listed in the BIOS. You can find this information on the client computer using the System Information tool (Msinfo32.exe). To open this tool, click Start, click Run, type msinfo32.exe, and then click OK. This value is listed as the System Manufacturer.

Bios Vendor

String

The name of the BIOS vendor as listed in the BIOS. To find this information on a client computer, run wmic bios get manufacturer from a command prompt. The first line of the output is the attribute name. Use the entire second line of output for the Bios Vendor.

Bios Version

String

The BIOS version as defined by the manufacturer. To find this information on a client computer, run wmic bios get smbiosbiosversion from a command prompt. The first line of the output is the attribute name. Use the entire second line of the output for the Bios Version.

Chassis Type

String

The physical container that contains the components of a computer. Traditionally, the only way to identify the chassis type has been by visual inspection. However, you can write a script using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class to determine the chassis type of a computer. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=143449.

UUID

GUID with brackets in the format: {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}

The computer GUID as listed in the BIOS and as displayed on the screen when you PXE boot a computer. You can also write a WMI script to obtain this information using the universally unique identifier (UUID) value of the Win32_ComputerSystemProduct class. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=143450. For example: {E8A3EFAC-201F-4E69-953E-B2DAA1E8B1B6}.

Install image filters

You can add install image filters if you want clients that select specific images to have access to a driver group. The following filter types are from the metadata of the image .wim file.

Filter type Accepted Values Description and Examples

OS Version

Number

The operating system version of the install image that is chosen by the user in the form: Major.Minor.BuildNumber.ServicePackNumber. For Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and the initial release of Windows Server 2008, specify 6.0.6001.18000.

To locate these values for an image

  1. Locate the image in the Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in.

  2. Right-click the image and click Properties.

  3. On the Version tab, click Image version and note the value in the right column. Note that this value is missing the ServicePackNumber – that is, it is in the form Major.Minor.BuildNumber.

  4. To locate the ServicePackNumber, click Service Pack level and note the value in the right column.

  5. To create a filter with the correct format, insert ServicePackNumber after Major.Minor.BuildNumber. For example, if 6.1.7025 was listed and the service pack number is 2, specify 6.1.7025.2 as the value for this filter.

OS Edition

String

The edition of the image that the user chooses. For example: BUSINESS or ULTIMATE. You can find the OS Edition by using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe).

To view the operating system edition of computer

  1. If the computer is running Windows Vista with SP1 or the initial release of Windows Server 2008, install the latest version of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK).

  2. Open an elevated command prompt (right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator).

  3. Run Dism /online /Get-CurrentEdition.

To view the operating system edition of an image

  1. Export the image to a new file. To do this, right-click the image in the MMC snap-in, click Export, name the file, and click Save.

  2. Open an elevated command prompt (right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator).

  3. Mount the image using the following syntax:

    Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:<path_to WIM_file> /index:<image_index> /MountDir:<target_mount_directory>

    Example: Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  4. To list information about the current edition, run Dism /image:C:\test\offline /Get-CurrentEdition.

OS Language

String in the form XX-XX

The language of the image in the format <language>-<REGION>, where <language> is the lowercase ISO 639 language code and <REGION> is the uppercase ISO 3166-1 country/region identifier. The valid language specifications are listed in the Culture Name column on the National Language Support (NLS) information page (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86010). For example, en-US, ar-SA, and de-DE.

Examples

Filters Result

Hardware filters:

  • Manufacturer | Equal to | Fabrikam, Inc.

  • Chassis Type | Not equal to | Laptop

Install image filters:

  • OS Version | Equal to| 6.0. 6001.18000

  • OS Edition | Not equal to | Business

Applicability: Driver packages matching client hardware

The only clients that will have access to these drivers are Fabrikam, Inc. computers that are not laptops. Of those computers, only clients that select a Windows Vista with SP1 image that is not Windows Vista Business will have access to these drivers. The applicability setting indicates that, for those clients that have access to the driver group, Windows Deployment Services will only install packages that match the client’s hardware.

Hardware filters:

  • UUID | Equal to | {E8A3EFAC-201F-4E69-953E-B2DAA1E8B1B6}

Install image filters:

  • OS Edition | Not equal to | Ultimate

Applicability: Driver packages matching client hardware

The only client with access to these drivers is the client with the specified UUID, and only if that client selects an image other than a Windows Vista Ultimate image. The applicability setting indicates that, for those clients that have access to the driver group, Windows Deployment Services will only install packages that match the client’s hardware.

Hardware filters: none

Install image filters:

  • OS Version | Equal to | 6.0.6001.18000

  • Language | Not equal to | en-us

Applicability: All packages in the group

Only clients that select a non-English (United States) Windows Vista with SP1 image will have access to these drivers. The applicability setting indicates that, for those clients that have access to the driver group, Windows Deployment Services will install all of the driver packages in this group—even those packages for which the client does not have hardware.

Additional references

  • AD DS Tab
  • Driver and Package Attributes