We’re using the UIU plug-in for SCCM. Management is relatively simple and straight forward. However, there are a couple of things to take into account:
1) All drivers are in a single package in SCCM by design. Our UIU driver package is currently 17.5 GB and this doesn’t include the individual custom driver packages that we have. You have to take this into account when updating the package across distribution points. If you don’t have beefy WAN links between network locations, then this can take some time to replicate. 2) The driver package is pretty good in covering the vast majority of drivers that you would expect for hardware in enterprise workstations and laptops, but not so much for consumer hardware. Everyone’s environment is different and I wish that I didn’t have to worry about consumer hardware, but that’s a totally different topic for a different time. 3) Drivers in the package are not always up to date. On occasion there can be a 6 month turn around between when a new driver has been released and when it finally makes it into the latest UIU driver package. Also, problem drivers (bugs) can sometimes be in place for a few months before a new driver package is available from the company. However, creating custom driver packages to override specific drivers in the package are easy to do and are integrated into task sequence using the standard WMI query statements (Select * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE Model LIKE “Latitude E6540”). Overall, it’s not a bad product… especially is you have an environment with a wide range of hardware. Updating and maintaining the driver package has improved quite a bit over the past several years. However, if you want more control over exactly what drivers are being used or have a more tightly controlled environment where only a few “approved” models are in production, then just using SCCM’s built-in driver management features may fit your environment better. And this goes without saying… licensing cost for UIU is always a consideration. My own opinion is that if it wasn’t for the randomness with which consumer hardware appears in our environment, I wouldn’t back paying for it considering that Dell and HP have driver packs available for importing into SCCM. Thanks, Charlie From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Conrad Jones Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 12:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [mssms] 3rd party driver utility's Hello Is anyone using uiu plugin for sccm or engl driver manager? If so please give your experiences and what percentages of drivers you have found it covers. Regards Conrad
