Integration of drivers is very simple with nLite. In this panel, we are presented with a list view of drivers to be integrated (currently blank), and buttons for adding or removing things to this list.

If you've never dealt with driver installations much, this may be a bit tricky at first, but it is an extremely easy procedure to perform once you learn how Windows deals with drivers.

In nLite, we have the option of integrating two types of drivers. The first kind, text-mode drivers, are encountered when you are installing Windows. These are the ones you see being loaded during the first stage of the installation when you are booting off the CD or floppies. These text-mode drivers (referred to as such because they are used in the text-mode portion of the installation) provides Windows with the basic knowledge it needs to be able to install itself onto and using your hardware (like CD-ROMs, disk controllers, and file systems).

The second kind of drivers are PNP drivers, or "Plug and Play". These are the kind that you usually deal with, such as video drivers, Ethernet drivers, sound drivers, and so on. In reality, both text-mode and PNP drivers could be the same physical file, but the difference comes from how Windows treats and loads them.

Both types of drivers need at least two files to be present: an information (.INF) file, which tells Windows what kind of driver it is, what kind of hardware it supports, what version of the driver it is, how to install it, and so on, as well as the actual driver itself, which is a binary file. These are usually have a .SYS extension, but some drivers also come with .DLL and .EXE files that provide other required functionality.

Text-mode drivers require a third file to be present: txtsetup.oem. This file tells the Windows Setup program much of what .INF files tell Windows, although in a different format. If you are interested in the format of either the .INF or txtsetup.oem files, you can visit http://msdn.microsoft.com and look at the Driver Development Kit section.

Anyway, let's get to the point.

In order to integrate either text-mode or regular drivers into your installation, you will have to download the driver, and then locate the actual driver information and binary files. This is simpler than it sounds. Even though I'm going to be installing my customized Windows in Virtual PC, I'll pretend that I'm using an nForce2/3 system just so that I can demonstrate the integration procedure.

The first step, obviously, is to acquire the driver. NVIDIA and the nForce will be used as an example since their driver package provides all of the drivers for the nForce platform in a single download. We'll download the archive now.

Many drivers are provided in self-extracting archives that automatically start the installation as soon as extraction is complete. This is not want we want in this case. To avoid this, we'll use a popular file archiver called "WinRAR". No person should be without WinRAR. You can get an evaluation version at http://www.rarsoft.com. The installation is quick and painless.

After installing WinRAR, it will by default add extraction options to the context (right-click) menu for files that it intelligently recognizes as archives, even self-extracting EXEs. We will now extract the nForce driver package into a folder.

Looking at the folder layout of the nForce driver package, it is more or less apparent what folder contains what driver. This identification process requires a bit of insight, however, since every manufacturer uses different naming and layout schemes. Some of the folders here are categorized further into Windows 2000 and Windows XP categories.

We'll start first with the IDE folder. In my opinion, this folder is inappropriately named, as it contains both Serial ATA and NVRAID drivers as well. We know that Windows requires the use of some kind of disk controller during its text-mode setup phase. Without drivers, Windows wouldn't know how to use the disk controller, meaning that it wouldn't be able to read or write anything to your hard drive. If you take a look in the IDE folder, you'll see that it is further divided into Win2k and WinXP folders. Since I'm using Windows XP, I'll use the WinXP drivers.

I notice right away that there is a txtsetup.oem file. Perfect! This means that we can use these drivers in the text-mode setup phase. If any nForce owners think back to the last time they installed Windows, you'll probably remember that you had to use the floppy disk supplied with your motherboard if you wanted to install Windows on your SATA drive/RAID array. The floppy disk merely contains a copy of the files you'll find in IDE\WinXP.

Let's go back to nLite and click the Insert button now. You'll see that nLite is now requesting you to point it to the location of your driver's INF file. In essence, it is not important which INF file you specify, as nLite is only looking for the folder which all of your driver's files are in. Navigate to the nForce\IDE\WinXP folder, and pick either of the two INF files.

nLite now asks if this is a text-mode driver. We know for sure that it is, and that we need it in text-mode, so we click Yes.

You'll see that there is now a driver listed in the nLite window, with details like the provider, mode, type, version, and date. We now use this same process to add all the rest of our nForce drivers (audio, Ethernet, SMBus, etc.). From this point on, if nLite asks if the driver is a text-mode driver (it shouldn't, unless it finds a txtsetup.oem file in the same directory as the .INF file), then say No.

If you are in fact using the nForce drivers, you'll see that the Ethernet folder contains two sets of drivers. One set is directly in the Ethernet folder, whereas the other set is in a folder called PreNRM. I haven't been able to find a straight answer anywhere, but the general belief is that PreNRM drivers are Ethernet drivers for nForce Ethernet controllers without the built-in hardware firewall (pre-nForce3), whereas the drivers in the root folder are for Ethernet controllers with the built-in hardware firewall.

For now, you might as well integrate both folders, and let Windows sort it out, at least until I find out for sure and update this guide.

After you are done integrating your choice of drivers, you will be presented with a listing similar to that of the one below.

Click Next.