Repairing or reinstalling the driver software, Removing the device drivers, Using the netxtreme ii monolithic driver – Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters User Manual

Page 53

Advertising
background image

Windows Driver and Management Application Installation: Broadcom NetXtreme II® Network Adapter User Guide

file:///C|/Users/Nalina_N_S/Documents/NetXtremeII/English/umwindrv.htm[9/5/2014 3:45:04 PM]

8. Click Install.
9. Click Finish to close the wizard.

10. The installer will determine if a system restart is necessary. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Repairing or Reinstalling the Driver Software

To repair or reinstall the driver software

1. In Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click Broadcom Drivers and Management Applications, and then click Change.
3. Click Next to continue.
4. Click Repair or Reinstall to repair errors or install drivers for new adapters.
5. Click Next to continue.
6. Click Install.
7. Click Finish to close the wizard.
8. The installer will determine if a system restart is necessary. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Removing the Device Drivers

When removing the device drivers, any management application that is installed is also removed.

NOTE: Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 provide the Device Driver Rollback feature to replace a device

driver with one that was previously installed. However, the complex software architecture of the NetXtreme II device may
present problems if the rollback feature is used on one of the individual components. Therefore, we recommend that changes
to driver versions be made only through the use of a driver installer.

To remove the device drivers

1. In Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click Broadcom Drivers and Management Applications, and then click Remove. Follow the on-screen prompts.
3. Reboot your system to completely remove the drivers. If you fail to reboot your system, you will not be able to

successfully install the drivers.

Using the NetXtreme II Monolithic Driver

The NetXtreme II, based on its advanced functionalities, uses a software architecture that includes a Virtual Bus Device (VBD)
to extend functionalities beyond basic network connectivity. Microsoft, however, 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 would be when used for 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 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 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

Advertising