While performing an unattended PXE deployment of Windows Server 2022 with Windows Deployment Services (WDS), you notice that the WinPE environment reports no network adapters on new rack servers that use a 25 GbE adapter not included in the default driver set. The vendor supplies separate driver packages for WinPE and for the full operating system. Which change will enable the installation to continue and reach the WDS image share without requiring manual intervention on every server?
Disable Secure Boot in UEFI and retry the PXE boot so unsigned drivers can load.
Import the vendor's WinPE driver into WDS and update the x64 boot image so the adapter loads during PXE.
Add the driver path to the OemPnPDriversPath entry in the unattend.xml answer file.
Use DISM to inject the adapter's drivers into the install.wim image that WDS applies.
Windows Deployment Services downloads the Windows PE (boot.wim) image first; any network or mass-storage driver required before the OS is laid down must therefore exist inside the boot image. Importing the vendor's WinPE-specific INF into WDS and regenerating the x64 boot image causes the adapter's driver to load during PXE, letting WinPE obtain an IP address and contact the deployment share.
Adding the driver only to install.wim or pointing to it with OemPnPDriversPath makes it available later, during GUI-mode Plug-and-Play, but does not help WinPE reach WDS. Disabling Secure Boot addresses signature issues, not missing drivers, so the NIC would still be absent.
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