Installing Windows XP via Remote Installation Services (RIS) or Windows Deployment Services (WDS) system using Realtek NIC based hardware configuration.

Problem description

You need to install Windows XP (or probably other version) on Realtek Network Interface Card based system (namely RTL8168/RTLRTL8111/RTL8139/RTL8169/RTL8110 and such). You want to use WDS (formerly RIS). Anything you try, you get: "The operating system image you selected does not contain the necessary drivers for your network adapter ..." error.

To whom is this article addressed (target audience)

Information contained in this article might help those, who have read, applied and failed Microsoft Knowledge Base articles: "How to add a third-party OEM network adapter to a RIS installation (KB315279)", "How to add OEM Plug and Play Drivers to Windows XP (KB314479)".

The solution

First, get the newest drivers suitable for the operating system you want to install. You can get them from Realtek. Do not download "Auto installation program", just the .zip archive. Let's assume that the file you need is the one for RTL8168 PCI-E and Windows XP. The compressed archive contains those or similar files:

netrtle.cat
netrtle.inf
rtenic.sys
rtenic64.sys
rtenicxp.sys

You need to copy them into Microsoft Windows installation directory. As you probably know RIS or WDS in legacy mode (which is used for any OS but Vista) installs your system using the installation CD based text mode setup. This means that even if you install RISprep'ed image, the CD-based image is used at some stage. More, the annoying "The operating system image you selected does not contain the necessary drivers for your network adapter ..." error message is generated by the CD-based image setup, not the RISprep'ed one, so for Windows XP the context of install CD image is the right place to put the files and not the RISprep'ed one. Of course if you do not use RISprep or even do not know what that is, the only place you can place the files is the install CD dir.

In my case the directory is is:

<some path>\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWS\i386

Next thing you need to do, is to make text-based setup stage aware of the new drivers for use and copying. This can be achieved by modifying the txtsetup.sif file. It is placed in the i386 subdir. As for Windows XP, 3 of the listed driver files are crucial: netrtle.inf, rtenic.sys and rtenicxp.sys. You should add this files into [SourceDisksFiles] section of the txtsetup.sif file. Here are the lines:

rtenicxp.sys = 1,,,,,,3_,4,0,0,,1,4
rtenic.sys = 1,,,,,,3_,4,0,0,,1,4
netrtle.inf = 1,,,,,,3_,20,0,0,,1,4

Note the bold 4's and 20. They tell the installer where to put this files on the target machine. 4 stands for system32/drivers and 20 for inf directories (as defined by file extensions).

The last thing you need to do is to restart WDS or RIS.

Good luck!