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Chapter 4: Installing the Monolithic Software Driver
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Using the NetXtreme II Monolithic Driver
The NetXtreme II Monolithic driver is used with a remote imaging software
such as WinPE, although it is not associated with any operating system.
Before you install a monolithic driver, you must install an AT-2973SX,
AT-2973T, AT-2973T/4, or AT-VNC10S adapter in a PC (or multiple PCs)
that you want to act as a remote node. Once you install the adapter and
the monolithic driver software, your can download the image from an
image server to the PCs with an installed adapter.
The NetXtreme II Family Adapters, based on its advanced functionalities,
uses a software architecture that includes a Virtual Bus Device (VBD) to
extend functionalities beyond basic network connectivity. However,
Microsoft, does not currently support this architecture when loading an
operating system through its Windows Deployment Services (WDS),
which was previously known as Remote Installation Services (RIS), or for
the deployment agent used in the Automated Deployment Services (ADS).
Therefore, a separate driver was created to accommodate these Microsoft
deficiencies. This driver is known as the NetXtreme II monolithic driver,
but it is sometimes referred to as the RIS driver.
The NetXtreme II monolithic driver was developed to work only for the text
mode portion of a WDS legacy installation and to establish connectivity
with a deployment agent for ADS. It is not intended to be used as a driver
loaded in the running state of an operating system. The exception to this is
the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE).
For WDS, this driver is used similarly to any other network adapter driver
for supporting network connectivity after the PXE boot to the WDS server.
When placed in the I386 or AMD64 directory (depending on the version of
the operating system being deployed), the monolithic driver is called to
establish that there is driver support for the NetXtreme II Family Adapter
included in the WDS legacy image.
For ADS, the driver is placed in the PreSystem directory on the server
running ADS to establish connectivity with the deployment agent on
remote systems with NetXtreme II adapters when booting from PXE.
While Windows PE 2005 natively supports the VBD architecture, it was
found that using the minint switch in the startnet.cmd file does not. The
minint switch performs a limited scan of the system bus to identify network
devices only and, therefore, does not support the VBD architecture. Since
only network connectivity is required in Windows PE, the only supported
driver is the monolithic driver for the NetXtreme II Family adapter in this
environment as well. Place the b06nd.inf file in the INF directory within the
Windows PE image, and place the appropriate driver file (b06nd51a.sys
for x64-based builds or b06nd51.sys for x86-based builds) in the drivers
directory. If Windows PE is deployed as a flat image from a RIS or WDS
server, you must also place both the b06nd.inf and the appropriate driver
file in the I386 or AMD64 directory containing the image.