Allied Telesis AT-2973T (NetExtreme II) - Manual (Page 83)

AT-2973SX and AT-2973T NetExtreme II Family Adapters Installation and User’s Guide
83
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 b06nd51.sys for x86-based builds) in the driver's
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. If the RIS or WDS
server is running Windows 2000 Server and deploying an x86 WinPE
image, you may need to include the Windows 2000 monolithic driver file
(b06nd50x.sys) in the I386 directory.