Backing up drivers in the operating room Windows system 10 must be done before reinstalling the system, or before making changes to Hardware computer. This is the easiest way to reinstall drivers.
The user can archive the drivers installed on the computer in order to restore all drivers after reinstalling the system, or in the event of a system failure, restore the desired driver from the archive. Sometimes it is difficult to find necessary drivers, especially for laptops, since manufacturers often equip the same models with hardware from different manufacturers.
Driver backups are performed by specialized programs for working with drivers, for example, a free program DriverPack Solution. Create backup copy Drivers installed on your computer can be accessed directly in Windows 10.
In this article we will look at four ways Reserve copy drivers in Windows 10: two ways using command line and two ways using Windows PowerShell.
Before creating backup copies of drivers, first create a folder in the root of the disk (directly on the disk itself) where you want to save the backup copies. Give the folder a meaningful name on English language, in this example I named the folder “DriverBackup”.
Backing up drivers using the command line
Run Command Prompt as Administrator. Enter the following command into the command line interpreter window (you can copy it from here):
Pnputil /export-driver * D:\DriverBackup
Please note that you may only have a “C” drive, not a “D” drive like I do, and also have a different folder name. Replace the “D:\DriverBackup” part of the code with your data. In the following codes from this article, also change part of the code to your location to save the drivers.
Wait until the drivers are copied, which will take some time. After the process is completed, the command line interpreter window will show the result of this operation.
You can then open the folder to ensure that the driver backups are saved on your computer.
Backing up your drivers using DISM
The second method for saving a backup copy of the drivers will also be done on the command line using DISM utilities.exe.
Run Command Prompt as Administrator. In a command prompt window, enter the following command (note the drive name and the name of your folder):
Dism /online /export-driver /destination:D:\DriverBackup
Then press the “Enter” key on your keyboard.
After this, the process of exporting copies of drivers to the folder selected for saving will begin.
Once completed, close the command prompt.
Saving a backup copy of drivers in Windows PowerShell (method 1)
Run Windows PowerShell as an administrator. Next enter in Windows window PowerShell following code:
Export-WindowsDriver -Online -Destination D:\DriverBackup
Then click on the "Enter" button.
Wait until the drivers are exported to the backup folder.
That's it, copies of the drivers are saved.
Creating a driver backup in Windows PowerShell (method 2)
The second method differs from the previous one in that a text file with a description of the saved drivers.
Run Windows PowerShell as an administrator. Enter the following commands (copy from here):
$drivers = Export-WindowsDriver -Online -Destination D:\DriverBackup $drivers | ft ProviderName, ClassName, Date, Version -auto | Out-File D:\DriverBackup\drivers.txt
The backup process will take some time.
Once the export is complete, open the folder you selected to save the backup. There you will find the file “drivers.txt”, which contains detailed information about copied drivers.
Restoring drivers from a backup in Windows 10
To install drivers from a backup after reinstalling Windows, copy the backup copy of the drivers from the permanent storage location to your computer's hard drive.
In the “Update Drivers” window, to answer the question: “How do you want to search for drivers?”, select the “Search for drivers on this computer” option.
In the next window, select the folder on your computer in which the drivers are saved, and then click on the “Next” button.
Then install the required driver from the list provided.
Conclusion
In Windows 10, you can back up drivers without using third party programs, by means of the system. Backing up drivers is done using the command line and Windows PowerShell.
Usually, when re Windows installation, situations arise when you need to restore the most necessary thing - this. It's good if there is installation disks with them. This is for the motherboard, video card, sound card, And so on. What to do if they are not there, but drivers are needed? You can, of course, resort to the Internet and download what you need from there, but there are situations when you are not in automatic mode or you need to search the sites yourself at the risk of getting . Therefore, I will describe to you a method where you can restore old drivers quickly and surely.
I will not describe what drivers are; I will only briefly write that a driver is a kind of utility that “explains” to the operating system what kind of devices are connected to it and how to work with them. There will be no drivers - there will be no normal operation with devices.
Often, Windows already has minimal and standard drivers preinstalled, even for a video card, but they will not provide full functionality with the computer, so you need to install your own (original) drivers for each device.
How to install "firewood" in a standard way I already wrote above (via the disks that were included with the devices and the “computer”), but now I’ll explain how to make this process easier and more convenient.
Of course, to solve such a common problem, many methods and programs have already been invented. I will write about one of these programs in this article. The program is called Double driver and you can download it from the tab Downloads by selecting the program itself and one of the download sites
And yet, you don’t have to wait until you need to reinstall the system. You can make this copy of the drivers at any time or once every 2-3 months (whichever is more convenient for you) and save it somewhere on a flash drive or hard drive. Just in case, but it might also come in handy later.
A small driver backup program that does not require installation. It allows you to find all the drivers installed on your PC and save them for later restoration after reinstalling the system. Its main feature is the ability to save drivers not only for a running system, but also for an inactive or even inoperable one!
Reinstalling the system is a simple matter, but quite troublesome. Firstly, you need to copy all the necessary information (documents, photos, music, etc.) to backup media in advance.
Then you should take care not to forget the bookmarks and passwords saved in your browsers. You may also need to save the necessary configuration files for a variety of applications...
And it often happens that everything seems to be saved, the system has already been reinstalled, but it turns out that the driver disk for your PC or laptop has disappeared somewhere! Has this ever happened to you?
If you have access to the Internet, then you can somehow get out of this situation (although you will spend a lot of time downloading new drivers). And if not? Then you'll have to look necessary disks with friends or even somewhere unknown :).
But it turns out that all these troubles can be avoided quite easily by making backup installed drivers ! And an excellent free program will help us with this. Double Driver.
Comparison with a paid analogue
Double Driver does not have rich functionality, but it copes with its main task with a bang - it saves installed drivers and helps to restore them on a new system. The paid My Drivers utility has similar capabilities:
From the comparison it is clear that in paid application There are slightly more possibilities than in Double Driver, but all of them (with the exception, of course, of the ability to download drivers from the Internet) are practically useless. But ours free program also has its trump cards.
Firstly, Double Driver can search for drivers even on an inactive system (can be a big help when working with LiveCD)!
And secondly, it allows you to save logs of your work and lists of detected drivers. This can help advanced users find the drivers they need online.
Getting started with the program
Double Driver does not require installation, so to start working with the program, simply unzip the folder with it to your hard drive and run the file dd.exe:
The program interface is in English, but quite simple, so it does not require translation for the most part. The application window consists of two parts: a toolbar with functional buttons and a work area.
When loading, we find ourselves in the “Home” section, where we can see the program’s event log, save it to a text file or print it on a printer. In this section, the “Select” button is inactive, since there is nothing to choose here :).
Backing up your drivers
To view the list of installed drivers and back them up, we need to click the second button on the toolbar - “Backup”:
In order to get a list of drivers, you need to click the “Scan Current System” button.
However, as I mentioned above, Double Driver can also search for drivers in inactive system directories. To do this, use the “Scan Other System” button. This function will be useful if you have several operating systems on your hard drive (for example, XP and 7).
You just need to specify the folder with the desired OS and scan it without having to download it!
By default, the list will highlight all drivers that are not included with Windows (although standard drivers everyone is present!). Using the “Select” button, you can quickly select all drivers, deselect them, or invert the selection (that is, select all drivers from Microsoft).
Naturally, you can also select the necessary drivers manually using the checkboxes to the left of the name.
So, using the “Select” button (the “None” item), we remove all selections, mark only the item we need, and then press the “Backup Now” button. The following window will appear in front of us:
Here we can select the folder to save the driver (section “Destination”) and the format of saving itself (section “Output”). As for the latter, we can save the drivers:
- In the format of structured folders that will be used by the program for recovery;
- In zip archive format, which can also be used for recovery using Double Driver;
- In format executable file, which can be used separately from the program as a standalone installer.
Choose required format save (I chose the first one) and press the “Ok” button. After some time, the backup copy will be ready!
Driver recovery
For the purity of the experiment, I completely removed the drivers of the tested network card from the system and now I will try to restore them using Double Driver.
To switch to driver recovery mode, you need to click the third button on the toolbar - “Restore”:
Click the “Locate Backup” button and in the window that opens, select the option for the location of our driver (or drivers, if you copied several at once). There are also three recovery options available here:
- Restoring from the default folder (My Documents) will suit you if you did not change the backup location when saving the backup copy (section “Destination”);
- You will need to select Restore from archive if you selected the second option (archiving) when creating a backup copy;
- We will need to restore from the specified folder (I used it) if we changed the default backup storage folder.
If you have chosen the correct location, you will see a list of drivers available for installation:
We mark the items we need and click the “Restore Now” button. The standard Device Driver Installation Wizard will launch, which will automatically configure the system properly and prepare our hardware component for operation:
After the installation of the driver backup was completed, the system successfully detected my network card, and I was able to restore all my settings to it without much effort. The test showed that Double Driver works quite correctly, which is what we need :).
Additional features
Basically nothing special additional features Double Driver does not. The only thing the program can do beyond the functionality described above is save logs of its work and lists of found drivers.
This information may be useful for advanced users or system administrators, because it allows you to immediately see all components installed on the system.
To use this function, you just need to click the “Save” button on the tab with the required data. So, in the “Home” tab we can save the Double Driver operation log, in “Backup” - a list of installed drivers, and in “Restore” - a list of reserved ones:
For example, in the screenshot above we can see a fragment of the saved list of installed drivers. In it, in addition to, of course, the name of the device, we can see the date last update driver, its version, class and identifiers (ven and dev), with which you can find all the software for the selected device!
Advantages and disadvantages of the program
- no installation required;
- the ability to select any drivers (including system ones) for backup;
- backup of drivers from an inactive system;
- creating backup copies of drivers with automatic installation;
- saving in Text Document list of installed drivers.
- It is not possible to download drivers from the Internet.
conclusions
Double Driver - simple " workhorse"in the matter of reserving installed drivers. However, this “horse” can sometimes help even in situations when other backup “monsters” are powerless.
For example, I have not yet come across a program that would be able to save all the drivers from an already “fallen” system. And Double Driver, thanks to its portability and the “Scan Other System” function, copes with this task with a bang!
P.S. Permission granted to freely copy and quote. this article provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.
If you plan to reinstall or Windows update, you may need to create a backup copy of your drivers operating system, so that you don’t have to search and download them again from different sources. This is especially useful if your PC does not have Internet access.
Preservation network drivers In this case, the PC is a priority in order to be able to immediately connect to the Internet and download the missing device drivers.
- By using special programs, which easily save and restore the main system drivers, but do not guarantee 100% results.
- Using the OS itself using the built-in DISM utility that works with Windows images and preserving maximum amount drivers.
Reference! A driver is a small program used to ensure that the hardware installed on a PC works together with the OS.
Saving drivers with special programs in Windows 7 and 10
Step 1. Press the key combination “Win and R” (“Win” is located to the right of “Ctrl”).
Step 2. Type “devmgmt.msc” in the window that opens and click “OK.”
Step 3. View the device tree. Devices with uninstalled drivers and unidentified devices will be marked in yellow exclamation point and a question mark.
Step 4. Right-click on the required device and select “Update drivers...”.
Step 5. In the window for selecting update methods, click on the “Search and install drivers manually” link.
Step 6. Click “Browse” to select the path (folder) to the drivers, select the folder and click “Next”.
The system will search the required driver and install it. Once the process is complete, restart your PC.
Working with drivers in DriverPack Solution
When backed up, OS drivers are usually compatible with the same version of the operating system. Drivers enabling use motherboard, also usually install and work fine.
However, there is a risk that some drivers may not work. For example, on laptops after installing the OS Touchpad usually functions normally, but its special buttons may not work.
Reference! When using a laptop, you often need to go to the manufacturer’s website to download drivers, including graphics, as those received from AMD or NVIDIA drivers don't always work properly.
You can also install missing drivers in the OS using special programs that include their own proven driver databases. One such program is DriverPack Solution.
Step 2. Launch installation file from the "Downloads" folder or from the bottom bar of the browser. The program will be installed on your PC.
Step 3. DriverPack will check your PC and offer automatic configuration. On the right side of the window, the program will show which drivers and applications will be installed. Click the green “Configure…” button and wait for the drivers to automatically download and install.
Step 4. Restart your PC.
Installing individual drivers
You can also download individual device drivers from DriverPack Solution. Drivers in the search bar of the site can be searched both by the name of the device and by its ID, which is suitable for searching for “Unknown devices”.
Step 1. To search by device ID, right-click on the device and select “Properties”.
Step 2. Go to “Details” and select “Equipment ID” in the drop-down list.
Step 3. Click in the “Value” field on the top line and press the “Ctrl + C” combination, copying the data from the line to the PC memory.
Step 5. Insert the cursor into the search bar and press “Ctrl+V”, inserting the device ID data into the search bar.
Step 6. If DriverPack finds a suitable device driver, it will provide a "Download Driver" download link. Select the version of your operating system (indicated by the arrow) and click the download link.
Step 7 Run the downloaded file by selecting “Install only...”.
Step 9 Suitable driver device will be installed. Click "Close".
Step 10 Restart your PC.
Backing up your operating system drivers before reinstalling it can easily return all PC devices to their working state. If you were unable to create copies of any drivers, you need to go to the equipment manufacturer’s website and download their latest versions from there.
Video - How to save drivers when reinstalling Windows
If you have a computer, you probably have experience installing drivers, without which the operating system simply will not be able to ensure the correct operation of all components. A driver is a kind of utility with which Windows can understand what device is connected to the computer and how to work with it. Without drivers, the user will not be able to listen to an audio recording, watch a video, or read information from removable media and perform many other actions.
How to create a backup copy of installed drivers in Windows?
Of course, you don’t need to constantly install drivers. They are installed when purchasing computer equipment and installing Windows. However, it may happen that you need to reinstall the operating system, respectively, at the next booting Windows You will need to reinstall the drivers.
It’s good if the manufacturer includes a disk with drivers in the overall kit. It’s a different matter when there is no such disk, in which case you have to look for suitable options on the Internet, download them and install them. However, such a search takes time to complete. You can save it only if you make a backup copy of your drivers in advance.
So, if you decide to create a backup copy of your drivers, you should be aware that it will act as an ideal assistant for you during the subsequent installation of Windows, but only on the condition that you install the exact version of the operating system for which you created the copy.
IMPORTANT. If you decide to back up your Windows 7 drivers and later switch to Windows 10, don't expect everything on your PC to work perfectly. An audio card, video card and other devices may work, but with glitches and errors.
It is also important to take into account the recommendation indicating that it is rational to make a backup copy of the “firewood” initially, as soon as you have installed the operating system and are convinced of the excellent performance of each device. Take care of where you are ready to save the backup, it could be an optical disk, flash drive or HDD the same computer, but only divided into several sections. Of course, in this case, make and save a copy correctly on the partition on which Windows is not installed.
Software used
Don't worry about having to do something in manual mode, especially when you don’t understand anything about it. The process of creating a backup version of “firewood” is fully automated; you just need to initially decide which program will act as a tool that creates copies. Programmers are ready to surprise users with a sufficient number of diverse software, capable of not only making easy copies, but also searching for the necessary updates for installed devices on a particular computer.
Slim Drivers is one of the best because it can:
- realize quick search the necessary drivers;
- make backup versions of all installed “firewood”;
- quickly and easily restore previously created copies.
The developers made sure that the Slim Drivers program had an expanded driver base.
It is also possible to make a backup version of “firewood” using Double Driver. This program is also a powerful and free tool that allows you to easily do what you have already outlined in your immediate plans. Many users confidently call Double Driver the most the best program, successfully competing with other analogues.
You can also consider Driver Checker, which is also a good program that allows you to easily make copies and also later restore all saved drivers if necessary without any problems. Driver program Checker is inferior to the previous listed utilities only in that its driver base cannot boast of its size. However, the user will be able to notice this drawback only when he decides to update previously installed working drivers.
Creating a backup driver version
So, if you have decided to make a copy of the “firewood”, have decided which program will act as the main tool, then all that remains is to study the algorithm of actions that tells you in what sequence it is important to perform everything. The operating principle of the Slim Drivers and Double Checker utilities is completely identical. It is enough to read the proposed instructions, and it will become completely clear how to make a backup version of the “firewood”.
Launch the utility, in the window that opens, go to the “Options” section, which will also contain subsections. You need to go to the second subsection “Backup”. This is where you must specify the path to the folder where the backup will be saved.
After this, you can proceed to the main steps, when the program will create a backup version of the drivers. Go to the “Backup” section; the listed list will show all the drivers that the utility was able to detect on the computer. Make sure that there is a check mark next to each of them in the checkbox. If you don't have one, be sure to deliver it. After that, click on the “Backup” button.
ADVICE. The process of creating a copy will start, it will be carried out automatically, you will simply wait for its completion, of which you will be notified by a message that appears on the screen. Most often, this procedure is short, about three minutes is enough to get a full copy.
Driver recovery
Of course, if you have a backup saved on your computer, it should be used in case you are forced to install a new operating system. The program with which you created a spare set of “firewood” can again act as an excellent assistant for troubleshooting the problem.
Recovery algorithm
Launch the utility, go to the “Options” section, then go to the “Restore” subsection. Here you can specify the path where you previously saved the backup version of all drivers.
In order to activate the recovery process, you will need to go to the “Restore” section. In it you can again see a list of drivers that the program agrees to restore. Make sure the checkbox next to each one is checked. After that, click on the “Restore” button. As soon as the program completes all actions, it will require you to restart the computer, do not resist, obey the requirements, just do not forget to save the documents you have open, if any.
So, even a novice user can easily cope with such a technical task as creating a backup set of drivers. It is only important not to be lazy, carefully read the proposed instructions and carry out practical actions without haste. The excellent performance of your computer will be a successful reward for your efforts.