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No drivers for Wi-Fi or Ethernet during Win 11 install?

Saltgrass
Level 13
It seems recently, Microsoft has started requiring an internet connection during a Windows 11 install. If you can't get a network adapter to work, then you cannot install. I know there is a work-around but I was wondering if anyone had used the USB drive included with the Z790 Hero board to include those drivers so as to have Wi-Fi or Ethernet drivers available for the install?

I might think you could add the drivers by pointing to the folder on the USB drive but I have not actually done that, so does anyone know the best way to get those drivers available so they could be used during the initial install?

According to the Insiders group, future versions of Windows 11, will not be able to use the workaround.

Thanks for reading.
Maximus Z790 Hero,
Intel i9-13900k
Intel BE200
2,729 Views
15 REPLIES 15

@JohnAb Thanks for the info and I will look into that.  But I do not use Rufus, and in case you do not know, these motherboards can use a normal NTFS formatted USB drive to install Windows 11.  Therefore, no problem with larger files not fitting on a FAT32 partition.

I will assume the Rufus version uses the oobe\xxx option, but I understand the Insider versions coming out, have eliminated that option.  It seems Microsoft wants you to use your e-mail address as a user name, which I don't want to do.

Maximus Z790 Hero,
Intel i9-13900k
Intel BE200


@JohnAb Thanks for the info and I will look into that.  But I do not use Rufus, and in case you do not know, these motherboards can use a normal NTFS formatted USB drive to install Windows 11.  Therefore, no problem with larger files not fitting on a FAT32 partition.


Maybe not applicable (anymore?) but you might not install into UEFI mode with an NTFS formatted USB stick. Therefore you have to use FAT32 to boot info UEFI mode and subsequent install Windows in UEFI mode. You can split the install.wim to fit it on a fat32 formatted USB stick. eg: Dism.exe /Split-Image /ImageFile:install.wim /SWMFile:install.swm /FileSize:3000. Then you can delete the install.wim.

 

The NTFS option has been working since my Z490 motherboard.  It used to be you had to use FAT32.  But this varies by possibly processor or chipset.  

It is so easy to just download the .iso and then mount it and copy over the files.  It is much faster than letting the utility create the USB drive for you, since it has to split the install.wim or install.esd file.

Maximus Z790 Hero,
Intel i9-13900k
Intel BE200

JohnAb
Level 17

You're probably right about the oobe/xxx option, I guess that's what it's doing. It looks that way during the install because the 'I don't have internet' option appears when it asks you to connect to a network. We'll have to see what happens in the future. I'll keep the last Windows install iso that still allows a workaround. Nice to have the option, although I have been signing in with my Microsoft account for a while now. As I also use Outlook for e-mail (both installed and via the browser) I have to sign in with that account anyway. Guess I've walked into the trap! Yep, they got me lol. 

Z690 Hero, BIOS 3401, MEI 2345.5.3.0, ME Firmware 16.1.30.2361, 7000X Case, RM1000x PSU, i9 12900K, ASUS TUF OC 3090TI, 2 x 16GB Corsair RAM @ 5200MHz, Windows 11 Pro 23H2, Corsair H150i Elite AIO, 4x Corsair RGB fans, 3x M.2 NVME drives, 2x SATA SSDs, 2x SATA HDs.

rene_bonvanie
Level 8

The same happened to me. I put the 22H2 Windows installation on a USB stick and the latest NIC driver that I downloaded from the ASUS website on another USB stick. I put them both in USB ports and started the installation. It worked exactly as Murph_9000 stated.

!! one caveat: I had to upgrade the BIOS first as the version that was loaded on the motherboard didn’t pass Windows 11 criteria.

ASUS ROG Z790 Maximus Hero / Intel 13900K / NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE / CORSAIR CMH192GX5M4B5200C38 4x 48GB

Tamorim
Level 7

I was able to bypass this using my cell phone USB tethering.