Solved Clean install no longer finds all drivers

hsehestedt said:

So what? You can still add those drivers through Device Manager or $OEM$. The fact that Windows update does not find them means absolutely nothing.

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No, you can't. Do you think I didn't try? Sorry to argue with you as you have been so helpful in the past.

Maybe you can check the SetupAPI log, and see if some drivers are "outranked".

One driver tool that @Ed Tittel recommends is Snappy Driver Installer Origin...

garlin said:

Maybe you can check the SetupAPI log, and see if some drivers are "outranked".

Code:

findstr /i outrank C:\Windows\INF\SetupAPI.dev.log

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I wish I could, but I had to restore from a Macrium backup, so I have no relevant logs.
Dear Garlin, please waste no time on this thread, since you have much better things to do helping thousands of people with your great knowledge of Secure Boot and Window's inner workings.

kelper said:

No, you can't. Do you think I didn't try? Sorry to argue with you as you have been so helpful in the past.

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So, let's take a moment to verify that we are talking about the same thing here. I won't bother with the $OEM$ method right now, let's just look at the easier method. BTW, this is in no way whatsoever trying to say that you are wrong, I simply want to be sure we are not talking about different procedures.

1) Start with the system fully configured with all drivers installed and working properly and no errors shown in Device Manager.

2) Export all the drivers by opening a command prompt and running these commands:

NOTE: There are multiple ways to do this, this is just one way.

MD C:\DriversBackup
pnputil /export-driver * C:\DriversBackup

3) Copy C:\DriversBackup to a thumb drive, external drive, another internal drive, etc. Anyplace that you can access after your clean install of Windows will do.

4) Perform your clean install of Windows.

5) Once Windows is installed, open Device Manager. At the top of the device tree you will see your computer name. Right-click that name and select "Add drivers".

6) Enter the location where you saved the backup of your drivers and make sure to check the box that says "Include subfolders". Click on "Next".

7) After the drivers are all installed, reboot the system.

Done.

Again, I am not doubting you. I just want to make sure that we are talking about the same thing here because I find it odd that this is not working. I've done this literally hundreds of times across dozens of machines from 10+ year old system to system purchased less than a month ago and have NEVER had this procedure fail. Not a single time. Maybe I just got lucky or there is something really odd and different on your system.

In case, I would be curious to know if this is the same thing that you tried or if there was some nuance I am unaware of.

Follow up: I had a thought just now. When I perform the above procedure, I am logged in with an Admin account. I don't know if using a standard account will work the same way. Admittedly, I have never tried this using anything other than an admin account.

hsehestedt said:

Follow up: I had a thought just now. When I perform the above procedure, I am logged in with an Admin account. I don't know if using a standard account will work the same way. Admittedly, I have never tried this using anything other than an admin account.

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Thanks. I will save your posts for the next time I need a clean install. I did not have the driver's saved any where. I did download them from Acemagic.

kelper said:

Thanks. I will save your posts for the next time I need a clean install. I did not have the driver's saved any where. I did download them from Acemagic.

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Acemagic! Good people. I have roughly 10 Mini PCs from them and have gotten great service from them. In fact, I'm expecting a package from them any day now

You can also use their driver set in place of saving drivers. I just prefer to export the drivers from my systems occasionally because that will capture all the drivers that may have been updated and are now newer than the drivers that Acemagic originally shipped. If you use their drivers, you will have all the drivers needed for the system, they just might get updated after Windows has been setup.

If you don't my asking, what model Acemagic system do you have? I'm curious whether I might possibly have the same one in my inventory.

hsehestedt said:

If you don't my asking, what model Acemagic system do you have? I'm curious whether I might possibly have the same one in my inventory.

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I have an LX15pro laptop.

kelper said:

I have an LX15pro laptop.

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I have never had a laptop from them, but would strongly consider one. Thanks for the info.

I bought it to play with VMs and it is fine. It had a US keyboard but came with a brilliant rubber overlay which will protect it from spills. It does not have any annoying customisations. It developed a screen flicker but that has gone away.

kelper said:

I bought it to play with VMs and it is fine. It had a US keyboard but came with a brilliant rubber overlay which will protect it from spills. It does not have any annoying customisations. It developed a screen flicker but that has gone away.

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Nice. Yeah, there are some things that I dislike about some of these less known brands like the fact that BIOS updates are a rare event with known security issues never getting patched. But I do like how pristine and clean they tend to ship their Windows installations. They are great where security is not the primary concern.

@kelper Here's a bug in your ear. Although there's a tutorial on backing up drivers within Windows, there's an old, old, old portable app that still works perfectly in Windows 11 even though it hasn't been updated since 2010. It's called DoubleDriver Backup and Restore. It backs up all non-Microsoft drivers to a neat folder all laid out with clear explanation of the device name that each driver is for. Or, you can backup a single driver. You can use DoubleDriver to restore all drivers or particular ones or you can manually change a driver in control panel by pointing it to a driver in the DoubleDriver backup.
I run it at least once a year on all my devices so my backup includes the latest ones.

I have used it for at least 35 years and gonna use it as long as Windows will let it work. You must run the executable as administrator.

Good suggestion, glasskuter. There is another one that I absolutely love. To tell the truth, that is what I use to export drivers. The simple pnputil command was just easier and I wanted to keep my post brief so I used it in my instructions.

This free app is called "Driver Store Explorer" or "RAPR" (not sure what the RAPR stands for.

If you are going to try any software, give this one a shot as well.

This is one of those apps that I install on EVERY machine and that I consider to be a 100% must have.

glaskuter, I plan to check out the tool you pointed to as well. I was not aware of that one.

Link:

hsehestedt said:

This free app is called "Driver Store Explorer" or "RAPR" (not sure what the RAPR stands for.

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Reveal the Actual Package Repository, which is what it does.

Yes, I use RAPR if I need to clear out any old driver leftovers, specifically when I get a new driver from Intel BT and wireless drivers. Sometimes there will be 4 or 5 old unused drivers left behind in my driver store.

glasskuter said:

@kelper Here's a bug in your ear. Although there's a tutorial on backing up drivers within Windows, there's an old, old, old portable app that still works perfectly in Windows 11 even though it hasn't been updated since 2010. It's called DoubleDriver Backup and Restore. It backs up all non-Microsoft drivers to a neat folder all laid out with clear explanation of the device name that each driver is for. Or, you can backup a single driver. You can use DoubleDriver to restore all drivers or particular ones or you can manually change a driver in control panel by pointing it to a driver in the DoubleDriver backup.
I run it at least once a year on all my devices so my backup includes the latest ones.

Double Driver - Download

Download Double Driver 4.1.0 - Examine all drivers installed on the system or scan remote PCs in order to back them to folder, archive or self-executable file, and restore them later

www.softpedia.com

I have used it for at least 35 years and gonna use it as long as Windows will let it work. You must run the executable as administrator.

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I will take a look.

Doubledriver works fine . It is 32 bit exe so only works in pe if it has wow support

dism++ is available in 64 bit and puts them neatly into descriptive folders




I usually include both in my pe builds.

also drvindex

In the Search box,type in---dxdiag--- and open as admin..
At the bottom of the System page,uncheck the WHQL box,this then allows you to download drivers without Windows blocking them.Don't leave it permanently unchecked.
Go through the other pages before a Power Off shutdown and restart.
Try downloading the problem drivers and see if the problem vanishes.

I marked this as solved. I just made some comments. I'm not looking for solutions as I just downloaded the driver's from Acemagic and installed them with pnputil. It was the first time a clean install did not give me Wi-Fi out of the box. After restoring a Hasleo backup from my Acemagic to my Acer Swift, I did follow suggestions to remove all the AMD drivers. Thanks all who responde.