Transfering drivers from one install to another

Hi everyone

I've just purchased a new computer, which I'm very pleased with, what i would like t do is give it a nice fresh install of Windows 11, I went and looked how to take all the drivers from my current (factory) install of windows and put them on the new install.

I decided to use the Microsoft command-line tool PnPUtil (pnputil.exe) and it did this sucessfully BUT the folder it produced is over 20GB in size! Surely this is more than just drivers that are in use, perhaps as it's a factory install it contains all drivers it could possibly use, as opposed to the ones that are actually in use .. if you get me.

I'm wondering if there is a way to strip this down to the ones it's actually using?

Many thanks

Zoo

zooburner said:

I've just purchased a new computer, which I'm very pleased with, what i would like t do is give it a nice fresh install of Windows 11, I went and looked how to take all the drivers from my current (factory) install of windows and put them on the new install.

Click to expand...

?? Huh ??

What's wrong with the drivers Windows installs??

Why do you want install drivers from a different older device to a different newer device?? Are all the components identical?? (I would hope not if it's a newer device)

This link may be useful:

idgat said:

?? Huh ??

What's wrong with the drivers Windows installs??

Why do you want install drivers from a different older device to a different newer device?? Are all the components identical?? (I would hope not if it's a newer device)

Click to expand...

Hi there,

Thanks for replying, windows drivers are fine for most things, but it shows that some are not installed.

I'm reinstalling windows on exactly the same machine

zbook said:

This link may be useful:

Backup and Restore Device Drivers in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to back up and restore all 3rd party device drivers on your Windows 10 and Windows 11 PC. If you clean install Windows, you will need to install drivers for each device in the system. Some of these device drivers may no longer be available from the manufacturer...

www.elevenforum.com

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Thanks zbook, that's very useful, I'm tempted to try 'Double Driver' utility as apparently it can be set to only copy third party drivers.

I see neither rhyme nor reason in what you are thinking.
Plus driver backup tools deal with installed drivers, not those that are 'potentially available' as far as I know.

You can reset or clean install Windows as you wish.

Drivers:
Review the Device Manager to see if any are missing.

Manufacturer support:
Example: I use Lenovo laptops. Lenov provides a couple of utiltiies to check for Lenovo -specific updates, including the BIOS. Maybe yours does the same. Have you checked? (Never heard of a make called 'Scan'.. as per your specs, if I am reading that correctly).

If not, there should be a drivers download page- wher eyou should find the current version.

Alternatively, let Windows install the drivers that are available, then use Snappy Driver Installer ORIGIN.

Download zip folder and extract the contents to a separate folder
Run SDIO_x64_R829.exe
Download indexes only
(Wait for download to complete)
Select only those drivers required. Do not be tempted to update current functioning/active drivers, even if listed (If they ain't broke, don't try and fix 'em)
Install

dalchina said:

I see neither rhyme nor reason in what you are thinking.
Plus driver backup tools deal with installed drivers, not those that are 'potentially available' as far as I know.

You can reset or clean install Windows as you wish.

Drivers:
Review the Device Manager to see if any are missing.

Manufacturer support:
Example: I use Lenovo laptops. Lenov provides a couple of utiltiies to check for Lenovo -specific updates, including the BIOS. Maybe yours does the same. Have you checked? (Never heard of a make called 'Scan'.. as per your specs, if I am reading that correctly).

If not, there should be a drivers download page- wher eyou should find the current version.

Click to expand...

It's simple really,

I have a new computer, as most computers come with windows already installed which is very good for getting up and running it often comes with lots of things you don't need or want.

I usually leave this on for a few days just to make sure the hardware performs properly, then when I'm satisfied it does I do a clean install of windows, usually from a downloaded iso.

Some of the drivers for needed cannot be found on optional windows update (though most can). So what I am trying to do is copy all the drivers from my initial system state and transfer them over to the new install on exactly the same PC. I tried this using the Terminal and the PnPUtil (pnputil.exe) command, it did successfully create a folder, but that folder was 21GB in size, this cannot be correct unless the initial install of windows was generic and included every possible driver that they could use for a new install.

I then went and downloaded 'Double Driver' from @glasskuter recommendation in the thread that @zbook kindly linked for me, that created a much smaller folder 2.9GB which would have been much less had it not included the Graphics Driver (2.5GB) !! which means that the actual drivers only amount to around 400MB

As regards Scan, it refers to a UK system builder scan(dot)co(dot)uk i very good place to buy computers (in my opinion)

The PnPUtil export process extracts all of the drivers in the driver store, whether they're in use or not. So yes, the folder of exported content can be quite large.

A lot of builders have what are basically driver packs, with every driver that a given family of computers could need. Those all get imported into the driver store, even if they are not needed for a particular device. I know you didn't get yours from Dell, but as an example, here are some recent versions of Dell driver packs; they're a little on the hefty side. And these are compressed; when expanded, they're about twice this size.

View attachment 167980

But anyway, yeah driver stores can be quite bloated. Personally, I would export everything in case I needed it. Re-install Windows and add missing drivers, taking note of which ones you actually end up using. Ditch the rest when you're satisfied everything's working.

Much easier than messing around with 3rd party tools and hoping that everything works after, just get the necessary motherboard drivers directly from Asus,


and for the video card straight from Nvidia,

"It's simple really". No it's not because you just bought a new machine and you seem intent on breaking it. The best drivers for a machine are the ones that come from the computer manufacturer. They made it work at the factory, so let it be. As has been said before, back up the drivers with Double Driver and download others from ASUS (computer manufacturer). If you don't like the bloatware installed on your machine then spend your time de-bloating Windows. Regardless, before you do anything you'll regret, back up an image of the entire disk and also the C drive.

One possible cause for DriverStore bloat is if you've added the NVIDIA drivers in a wrong manner.

Normally you want to add just the one INF that best matches your specific GPU model (by HW ID). But if you import all of the drivers from a folder (don't know if this happened fro you, but it's happened to others), then each loaded INF creates a separate driver folder with a duplicate copy of the shared graphics DLL's.

For a single NVIDIA driver instance, that's around 1 GB. But if you have drivers for other NVIDIA models that aren't physically installed, then each unused driver folder takes about the same 1 GB. So like 14-20 GB of extra storage. And the Realtek audio counts as close to 1 GB.

Maybe you have a different problem, but importing unused drivers can sometimes lead to excessive folder sizes.

zooburner said:

Hi everyone

I've just purchased a new computer, which I'm very pleased with, what i would like t do is give it a nice fresh install of Windows 11, I went and looked how to take all the drivers from my current (factory) install of windows and put them on the new install.

I decided to use the Microsoft command-line tool PnPUtil (pnputil.exe) and it did this sucessfully BUT the folder it produced is over 20GB in size! Surely this is more than just drivers that are in use, perhaps as it's a factory install it contains all drivers it could possibly use, as opposed to the ones that are actually in use .. if you get me.

I'm wondering if there is a way to strip this down to the ones it's actually using?

Many thanks

Zoo

Click to expand...

Using a driver backup is great when reinstalling windows. The backup assures all the drivers you need for the reinstall are already collected and stored for you in one place. But it sounds like you're installing Windows on a new and different PC. What are you trying to accomplish with a driver backup of a different PC? On a new PC, one typically wants the latest drivers on the target PC. Even if both PCs have the same hardware device the two may be different versions. The newer version may also use a newer driver version (whether that's true or not is up to the manufacturer). End result is trying to use a backup driver from a different PC may not be the best choice.

As for doing a DriverStore export vs using Double Driver

• DriverStore is a staging area for every driver that's been loaded on your PC.
  • It includes all the Windows and 3rd party drivers ever loaded (note the important word here is "loaded" as drivers loaded in the DriverStore may or may not be installed)
  • DriverStore not only includes the latest version of a driver but also ALL the older versions that were loaded before it. That's how Windows supports driver rollback
  • So, given the DriverStore contains every version of every Windows and 3rd party driver ever loaded on your PC is why a pnputil export file can be so huge
  • Hint: You can reduce DriverStore size by removing all old driver versions. Great to reduce DriverStore size but you'll lose the ability to tell Windows to rollback a driver. From an admin command prompt
    Code:

    dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

• DoubleDriver - very handy driver backup tool
  • You can tell it to only backup 3rd party drivers (which is all you really need and I ever use it for)
  • It only backs up drivers that are currently installed for active devices - meaning there's a device using it. Not 100% sure but believe it doesn't backup drivers for ghost devices. All reasons why the DoubleDriver backup file is much smaller then an export

MidwestGeek said:

But it sounds like you're installing Windows on a new and different PC

Click to expand...

zooburner said:

I've just purchased a new computer, which I'm very pleased with, what i would like t do is give it a nice fresh install of Windows 11, I went and looked how to take all

Click to expand...

Inject the drivers into install.wim on the usb installation drive (see tutorials) using dism.

Then if new installation needs injected driver, it will select it.

Far better solution than pnputil approach.

This is super easy to address. I need to get in front of my other machine to give you a detailed response. Look for full details within the next hour.

Exporting the drivers like you did is frustrating if you have a ton of old drivers, so the solution is as simple as deleting old drivers.

One of my favorite tools of all time will allow you to solve this. Download Driver Store Explorer (RAPR) from here:


Run the program. Click on "Select Old Driver(s)" and then "Export Driver(s)". Why are we bothering to export old drivers? I'm doing that just to be on the safe side in case deleting any of these causes a problem. I have never seen a problem doing this, but better safe than sorry.

Now, in driver Store Explorer, select the button "Select Old Driver(s)" once again and then "Delete Driver(s)".

You can now use pnputil if you wish or use Driver Store Explorer to export all your drivers. It should be a lot less data than before. To do this with Driver Store Explorer, just select "Export All Drivers".

TIP: In Driver Store Explorer, choose "Options" and then either "Use Native Driver Store" or "Use DISM". If you use DISM it will act the same as PNPUTIL while choosing to use the native driver store will give you a nice directory structure named after the type of driver. I suggest experimenting and comparing to see what you like most. In any case, the drivers re-import the same way in either case, just as with your PNPUTIL export.

I should note that I have on rare occasions I have seen errors when exporting drivers with the "Use Native Driver Store" option. If that happens just try the "Use DISM" option instead. That issue may be fixed in current versions of RAPR, but I thought it worth noting.