Installing drivers on Windows 2012 Server Core

I needed to install a USB device on my HyperV host for which drivers had to be installed. Here’s how to do it:

  1. First copy the drivers to a temporary folder on the server core host. In my case C:\Install\FTDI.
  2. Open a command prompt on the server core host.
  3. In the directory with the drivers type the following command: pnputil -i -a *.inf
  4. As you can see the drivers have been installed successfully:

    Microsoft PnP Utility
    Processing inf :            ftdibus.inf
    Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
    Driver package added successfully.
    Published name :            oem2.inf
    Processing inf :            ftdiport.inf
    Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
    Driver package added successfully.
    Published name :            oem3.inf
    Total attempted:              2
    Number successfully imported: 2

    Microsoft PnP Utility
    Processing inf :            ftdibus.infSuccessfully installed the driver on a device on the system.Driver package added successfully.Published name :            oem2.inf
    Processing inf :            ftdiport.infSuccessfully installed the driver on a device on the system.Driver package added successfully.Published name :            oem3.inf

    Total attempted:              2Number successfully imported: 2

  5. Now connect the USB device and check whether it is recognized correctly in the system event log:
    Driver Management concluded the process to install driver ftdiport.inf_amd64_66f12493ff5adfb9\ftdiport.inf for Device Instance ID FTDIBUS\VID_0403+PID_6001+AE01CSYUA\0000 with the following status: 0x0.