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Drivers

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Many times when reformatting a system (win based), one of the most annoying issues I have to deal with is finding drivers to reload. It is easy enough to look in the device mgr to see what drivers are used but is there any way to get/copy a driver from the existing system prior to the reformat? I often wonder if there is a way to create a .inf or something similar so I dont have to source out a driver when it isn't readily available (cd or floppy).

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by jereg

I'm going to watch your question because it's a good one. There isn't a way that I've found to reinstall drivers. In the past, when I set my PC up at home I made a tape image to reinstall the basic system. Now you can make cd images to reinstall a working setup. But because the driver files are spread throughout Windows directories, there isn't any way to "capture" the driver image.
At home, I keep a "reinstall" box that contains the OS, and all the driver disks, (hardware) and my ISP software, and any codes or numbers I need to restore the system. At work I a couple of boxes that have all the drivers for the PC's. But that's a pain. this year I'm upgrading all the PC's to one brand so I'll only need one set of drivers, and I'll only needto go to one site to get new onees.

by thechas

Based on my experiances, the answer is no.
A few devices do place .inf, and .ini files into the windows folder to identify the device and required files. That provides enough information for Windows to install the driver.

However, you still need all of the driver files, and there is no single folder where these files are kept.

Then, there are the devices that place all of their file locations in the registry. The only way to back these up would be to export the registry keys. And, there is still that issue with the files.

Until we reach a point where there is a single drevice protocol that all driver writers follow, we will not have an easy method to export a driver from an existing system.

What I do, is set up a folder that contains all of the driver installation files for that system.

I copy the driver files from every driver CD or floppy I get my hands on.
I have an extensive list of drivers stored on my hard drive, with backups on CD.
I even create a custom CDfor every system that I assemble. This CD includes the latest version of all drivers, BIOS, and manuals. Along with selected OS updates, browsers, and other freeware that I install.

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