The driver check - the most valuable check in this script - has never actually
run. It died on:
Driver check failed: Cannot convert the JSON string because a dictionary that
was converted from the string contains the duplicated keys 'FileName' and
'FileName'
HardwareDriver.json carries both casings of the same fields - fileName and
FileName, destinationDir and DestinationDir. ConvertFrom-Json treats object keys
case-insensitively and refuses the document. -AsHashtable would handle it but
that is PowerShell 6+, and WinPE runs 5.1. Confirmed it throws on PowerShell 7
too, so no version of ConvertFrom-Json can read this file as-is.
Pulls the four needed fields out of each entry by regex instead, preferring the
lowercase key and falling back to the capitalised one, and unescaping the
backslashes in destinationDir.
Tested against the real 44-entry catalogue, all three outcomes:
OptiPlex Micro 7020, pack present -> OK, win11_optiplexd13mlk7020_a09.zip
same model, pack removed -> FAIL, names the missing path
Surface Laptop 7 -> FAIL, no pack matches
Worth noting the check was failing SAFE - a WARN that reads like a tooling
glitch rather than a missing driver pack. It would have stayed invisible until a
bay imaged with no NIC.
TWO SCRIPTS, DIFFERENT AUDIENCES
playbook/scripts/preflight.ps1 runs at the bay, called by startnet once the
media is mapped. It checks the four things that come straight out of PESetup's
own behaviour:
secure boot GatherDataSelection fails outright when SecurebootEnabled != 1
disk >= 120GB MinRequiredSpaceWithoutCompression is 128849018880
driver match reimplements GetDriverByModel - family filter, untrimmed
comma-separated substring tokens, first match wins - and checks
the pack is actually on the media
media age media expires 30 days after build; Media.tag's timestamp is the
local proxy
The driver check is the one that earns it. A miss is only a WARNING to PESetup,
so the bay images with no NIC, DNS fails at first boot, and enrollment cannot
reach the CDN - a symptom three steps removed from the cause. Advisory by
design: it reports and pauses on a blocker, the tech decides. Lives on the
enrollment share so it can be fixed without rebuilding boot.wim.
scripts/preflight.py runs on the server before a build day and aggregates
everything already built - driver catalogue lint, unattend lint, per-PCTYPE
media view verify - plus a new advisory firmware-coverage check that lists
catalogued models with no BIOS models.txt entry. That last one is how the
OptiPlex 7020 family sat uncovered: 127 catalogued models, 58 covered today.
First run: driver catalogues clean, all three unattends clean, firmware coverage
advisory only. PREFLIGHT PASSED.
Verified: both scripts parse clean (PowerShell parser / python), startnet parens
balance, every goto resolves, 915 CRLF lines with no bare LF. Deployed -
boot.wim md5 99fd3132, preflight.ps1 on the share.
