Best Free Windows Driver Backup and Restore. Introduction. Drivers are an important part of the system. They act as intermediaries between the system, and the hardware devices. They interpret the signals, and facilitate communication between the system and the devices. Without proper drivers, the devices either won't work properly, or won't work at all. Generally, the drivers come on a CD/DVD, with the hardware devices. Driver Backup – Save Drivers Before Formatting. Driver Backup – Save Drivers Before Formatting. It can be used to backup your hardware device drivers on a. Do I need to backup drivers if I want to format and reinstall windows 7. Vista, of Windows before upgrading to a newer. As an alternative, they can also be downloaded from the hardware manufacturer's site, and that's the best place to download the drivers, or their newer versions. But sometimes, the CDs can get misplaced, or lost, or the drivers might not be available from even the manufacturer's site, because they might have stopped providing support for the hardware. In such cases, the driver backup software are like a boon. These software back up the installed drivers for different hardware devices on the system. If you have an old system, and do not have a CD, or cannot get drivers from the hardware manufacturer's site, it would be a good idea to backup all the installed drivers on the system. Or, even if you have the CD, or the drivers, I will still recommend backing up the drivers, and storing them at a safe place, just in case. It's always better to be on the safe side. Tip: I will also suggest backing up the drivers using more than one software, so that if one program is not successful in restoring them, or is unable to restore some of the drivers, the other ones may still be able to do the job. In this review, I have covered programs which have the ability to backup drivers, and also restore them. The programs which do not have the ability to restore drivers have not been given a place in the review, and have been mentioned under Other Programs, after the review. Backup data, drivers and settings. Backup your drivers with. During, and after reinstalling Windows. I do this before installing any drivers and apps. TechRepublic's Windows Vista Report newsletter. Windows Vista Ultimate which I had started doing a complete PC. Backup and Restore. It had no problems formatting the 3 other disks before. This is because, I feel that for general/novice/intermediate users, restoring drivers manually might be a difficult job. I will consider a program useful, only if it has the ability to restore the drivers too, along with the ability to back them up. Some of the software also have the ability to update the drivers, but I have not covered that in the review. This review is purely based on the abilities of the programs to backup and restore the drivers, and not updating them. As mentioned earlier, the best place to download new versions of the drivers is from the hardware manufacturer's site. Not all software listed below have the ability to create a list, or a report of drivers installed on the system. If you want a list of drivers installed on the system, you can use the excellent small utility called Driver. View from Nirsoft. Very easy to use. Can backup drivers from an offline system. Backs up phantom devices. Option to save list of installed drivers in text file. Fast restoration of drivers. None. Read more.. License: Free. Simple interface. 2 Easy Ways to Save Drivers before. How to Backup Drivers on Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista. Best Free Windows Driver Backup and Restore. Windows drivers can be made to back up by editing the.ini. How to Backup Drivers on Windows 10, 8.1. How to backup drivers before formatting Windows OS? Windows XP and Windows Vista. Now backup your printer drivers. You can restore files from a backup that was created on another computer running Windows Vista or Windows 7. Very easy to use. Can backup drivers from an offline system. Backs up phantom devices. Option to save list of installed drivers in text file. Fast restoration of drivers. None. Read full review.. License: Free. Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) . Presents list of installed drivers in an organized way. No options to select only third party drivers. Generates folder names based on hardware IDs. Has to be exited from tray to fully close it. Read more.. License: Free. Appealing interface. Presents list of installed drivers in an organized way. No options to select only third party drivers. Generates folder names based on hardware IDs. Has to be exited from tray to fully close it. Read full review.. License: Free (Limited features)Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) . Reliable backup and restore. Very slow in restoration of drivers. Many features and options stripped down since version 6. Read more.. License: Free (Limited features)Good interface. Reliable backup and restore. Very slow in restoration of drivers. Many features and options stripped down since version 6. Read full review.. License: Free (Open source)Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) . Good program options. Works great for backup. Not successful in restoring drivers. Not fully portable, since it requires . NET. Read more.. License: Free (Open source)Can back up drivers from offline system. Good program options. Works great for backup. Not successful in restoring drivers. Not fully portable, since it requires . NET. Read full review.. But, I am listing them here, in case anyone comes across them, and wonders about their abilities. Driver Magician Lite It performs the task of taking backup of the installed drivers very well, but unfortunately, it does not restore drivers. It presents a neat list of installed drivers, with the third party drivers(that is, drivers not contained in Windows by default), marked in red, making it easier to distinguish them. Users can select these drivers, or, they can select individual ones, or select all, depending on requirement. The backup is done in nicely structured folders with clear device names. Driver. Pack Solution Lite Not recommended. The program is more of a driver update program. There is option for backup, but there is no option to restore the backed up drivers. On the Backup window, there is a checkbox to backup to exe format, which does not seem to work correctly. I backed up drivers using both exe format, and non- exe format, and did not find any difference in the way the drivers were backed up. It offers to install Delta Toolbar, Delta search engine, and also offers to change the home page, and new tab page. These can be avoided by choosing custom installation. In the next screen too, another unwanted software suggestion is shown, which should be declined too. The help for program leads to a non- English page. Besides, the program interface is kind of weird, and the program contains several features, which I thought were unnecessary in a driver update/backup program. Device Manager can be considered a justified feature in the program, but I still think it's unnecessary. Other unnecessary features are inclusion of Add/Remove Programs within the program. Link to System Restore is also on the backup screen, which is misleadinly termed as Restore Windows. There is a Diagnostics dropdown in the program which includes features like testing memory, defrag, system cleanup and antivirus scan, which are really not required to be there. There is also an option to Update BIOS, which besides being unnecessary, is also dangerous, in my opinion. It only backs up third party software. Windows drivers can be made to back up by editing the . The program is not in development anymore, and the home site is under development too. There is no official report, whether the program will work on Vista, or Windows 7. Same for 6. 4- bit Windows. Driver Collector Does not have a website anymore, and the program is not in development. There are no options to configure the program. There is no option to back up the drivers in batch mode. Instead, individual drivers have to be selected and backed up manually. This defeats the purpose of having a software to make things easier. I only have Windows XP, so, this is the best I can do. But, the software which are indicated to run on Windows Vista, and Windows 7 on their website, should work in the same way as described in the article. First, backup of drivers of the main running system was taken with each software one by one. The main system has all the drivers installed with the help of CDs, that came with motherboard, and with other hardware devices, such as the web camera, or the network card. The restore procedure was performed on another hard disk, used on the same hardware system. Same copy of Windows XP was installed fresh on this hard disk, but without the third party drivers. Image of the system in this state was made with the help of a drive imaging software. Each time, before using another software to restore the drivers, the system was returned to the fresh state, with the help of the image taken earlier. The drivers were then restored on this fresh copy of Windows XP, with each program. Registered members can contact the editor with any comments or suggestions they might have by clicking here. Back to the top of the article.
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