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Can I keep the drivers?

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15 replies

by pbtoms 1 view

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We have replaced about 30 old computers, and are giving the old ones away to employees. Obviously, I need to wipe them before giving them away (just a format, nothing heavy-duty), and then will need to reinstall Windows (95 or 98) on the machine. The computers are mostly from before I started here, and have little or no documentation or software. Is there any way for me to save the drivers from a machine? In other words, can I somehow pull the drivers off, save them on a disk or network drive, wipe the machine, reinstall windows, and put those same drivers back? Many of them have video and sound cards that are not branded, I've had to use FCC ID #s and stuff in the past to track down drivers. Is there a simple way to do it, or a utility out there I can use?

15 replies

by willcomp

I know of no way to save drivers unless there are copies in folder(s) on hard disk. Check for a drivers folder and look under cabs (if there).

A utility that may be of use is Everest Home. Available at link below.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/everest.html

Also, for identical or near identical PCs, you can install once and then ghost drives to save time and effort.

Dalton

by willcomp

Comment on Chas' response.

OEM Version of software can be transferred with system it was originally installed on per EULA. Trust me on this one or read a Windows 95/98/Me/XP OEM EULA for yourself.

Volume licenses cannot be used outside the company that has the volume license unless license agreement allows it.

by pbtoms

Everest didn't help much in this case, but could have, and will in the future, I'm sure. Thanks for the tip!

by glyall

wiil is on the mark

you can download the drivers from the web.
first go the the web site of the maker of the pcs.
they should have the drivers for your model.
burn them to CDs.

you can also go to www.driversguidle.com for drivers. they have a lot of old drivers there.

good luck

by pbtoms

I know how to find the drivers online, just didn't want to have to track down drivers for 20 different machines.

by thechas

While I have not tried it, and do not personally recommend doing so, there is software that purports to back up drivers.

http://www.driverguidetoolkit.com/

Like Dalton, I recommend using a hardware listing utility to identify what you have and then download the latest drivers.

For most hardware, you get equal results if you use the chip manufactures default drivers.

Just a side comment here:
What license is your copies of Windows?
If it is OEM, check the EULA closely.
It may violate the EULA to have an OEM version of Windows installed on PCs that you get rid of.

You are allowed to transfer a full retail version of Windows, but not OEM or corporate license versions.

That actually is the biggest problem for corporations in getting rid of old PCs. They cannot legally leave any software on the computer.

Chas

by pbtoms

The Driver Guide Toolkit was exactly what I was looking for. Well, not exactly, but closer than anything else I found. Didn't work for everything, but did save me a lot of hassle for the stuff it DID work for. Thanks!

by pbtoms

Thanks for the help. There are probably a dozen or more different configurations, and since this is a "being nice" gesture to give them away to employees, and I am the only IT guy in the firm, in the middle of a major migration/upgrade project involving a new T1, 3 new servers, and 35 workstations, as well as an entirely new practice management database system, I was hoping to find a way to minimize the hassle of finding and downloading the drivers. Guess I have to do it the hard way. At least I'll know I'm not missing something that would have made it easier (though I haven't checked out the driverguide toolkit, looks promising...)

by white wolf

I think the above answers are good, and I think your best shot at IDing the misc. hardware on each pc would be using Sandra 2005 available @ http://www.sisoftware.net/

It's a free download, and after running it on each of the pc's you should be able to collect the proper drivers from the web.

Good Luck!

by rcom

You'd need to copy the Windows folder which contains INF, System, System32 and any folder from other locations like Program Files so on.

A problem would be with drivers that also have software component like sound mixers etc.

If you go to device manager and look at each device you can see the list of drivers files.

Some devices, especially modems are software driven and need the install routine to work correctly.

But many times I've been able to get thnings back by looking at the path where the driver files are going and pointing to that path when the disk isn't available. Works good for restoring networking settings.

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