SCCM Task Sequence Remove Video Drivers

During my project to upgrade all our Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (64bit) devices to Windows 10 Enterprise 1809 (64bit), I ran into a compatibility issue during the task sequence. Windows 7 video drivers were detected as incompatible during the in-place upgrade to Windows 10, so I had to find a way to remove the drivers during the SCCM task sequence.

This is the batch file code I used to disable, then remove video drivers from the task sequence.

@ECHO OFF

REM Driver is disabled
devcon disable =display

REM Driver is removed here
devcon remove =display

REM reg add command replaces whatever value is in the SearchOrderConfig with the appropriate value to tell the system NOT to go to windows update for driver updates
REG ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching /t REG_DWORD /v SearchOrderConfig /d 0x0 /f

REM Driver package is removed here
FOR /F “tokens=4 delims= ” %%A IN (‘devcon driverfiles ^=display ^| FINDSTR “Driver installed from”‘) DO devcon.exe dp_delete -f %%A

EXIT 0

The following shows where in the task sequence I add the video driver removal step. Also, note that I have a step to copy devcon.exe utility which is not on Windows 7 by default.

I’ve extensively tested this on my DELL devices and it works perfectly.

SCCM Task Sequence Error Code 0x80004005

While attempting to perform an in-place upgrade from Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 10 Enterprise I came across Error Code 0x80004005.

Looking at C:\WINDOWS\CCM\Logs\smsts.log gave me the clues on the error message.

There are many posts on how to fix this particular error message; it seems that this error code is pretty generic and it shows up on several instances in many SCCM operations – this document particularly deals with a task sequence for an in-place operating system upgrade.

Since this was an in-place Windows upgrade, I needed to find out more detailed information and I was able to get it from C:\$WINDOWS-BT\Sources\Panther this folder contains a list of .XML files that collect compatibility data that is collected during the upgrade process.

I opened the last XML file and this gave me the actual clue as to what was failing during the upgrade process – video drivers were the culprit!

Now I know what’s going on during the task sequence and I can attempt to fix this issue.

I’ll blog about how to fix this issue in a new post, stay tuned!

Conflicting VIB: Upgrading to ESXi 6.5

While attemtping to upgrade from ESXi 6.0 to 6.5, I received the following message from Upgrade Manager:

The upgrade contains the following set of conflicting VIBs: VMware_bootbank_ehci-ehci-hcd_1.0-4vmw.600.3.69.5572656 Remove the conflicting VIBs or use Image Builder to create a custom upgrade ISO image that contains the newer versions of the conflicting VIBs, and try to upgrade again.

After researching this message and not finding an answer that could fix it, I called Vmware support and this is what they suggested.

My server hardware: DELL PowerEdge R330

1. Support asked me to download 6.5 upgrade, the zip file though. ESXi 6.5 zip file for DELL PowerEdge R330 can be found here. Click on the Vmware ESXi 6.5 U2 section and then click on the ‘Other formats’ link do download the .zip file.
2. Next, upload this file to the host you’re trying to upgrade.
3. Log on to the host as root and type the following command
   1. esxcli software vib install -d “/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip”
4. Reboot your host

 

The actual Vmware KB can be found here.