How to Backup and Restore from already installed drivers in Windows

Keeping a backup of a driver had always been important. Things can break because OEM did not update the driver with the next feature update of Windows 10, or maybe you un-installed a version of the driver, and you cannot find it online.

You must keep a backup of drivers installed on Windows so you can quickly restore what was working.

Backup & Restore installed drivers in Windows.

All of the software on the list is free to take a backup of all the installed drivers. Make sure to keep the backup in a safe place.

1. DriverBackup!
2. Backup using PowerShell
3. Device Manager

You can use any of the three software, but you can always judge based on the requirement.

DriverBackup!

It’s a portable application that is simple and straightforward to use. So when you extract it, make sure to keep it in a place from where you will not delete it.

Done that, double click on the DrvBK.exe to launch the application. It will instantly scan the computer and find out all the drivers installed on the computer. It is easy to find out if it listed all drivers by verifying some of the devices using Device Manager.

Make sure to select all of them and then click on the Backup button to start backing up all the drivers. Similarly, you can use the Restore button to bring back all or an individual driver when needed.

Since most of the time, the issue comes from third-party drivers or OEM, you can click on the filter buttons and then take the backup.

The software can also take a backup from an offline system. It comes in handy when your old system crashed, but the hard disk is working fine. The software will detect the portion where windows were installed and then find out all the drivers.

Download from SourceForge

Backup Windows Drivers using PowerShell

Windows offers an in-built utility to backup Windows Drivers. You can execute the commands from PowerShell with admin privileges. These commands can both restore and backup drivers from PowerShell.

Export-WindowsDriver -Path C:\Windows -Destination D:\Backup\WinDriverBackup

Dism /online /export-driver /destination:"D:\Backup\WinDriverBackup"
Dism /online /Add-Driver /Driver::\WinDriverBackup /Recurse
DISM /online /Add-Driver /Driver::\WinDriverBackup\<path_to_driver.inf>

The Export command takes backup of all the drivers. The second command will restore all drivers from the backup folder. Lastly, if you only want to reinstall a specific driver, then you need to give the exact path of the INF file.

Windows Device Manager

It doesn’t offer a way to the backup driver, but it is excellent if you want to restore the driver of a single device.

•  Use Win + X to open Start Menu advanced menu.
• Click on Device Manager
• Locate the hardware for which you need to install the driver
• Right-click on it and select properties.
• Switch to the Driver tab, and then select Update Driver
• Locate the driver manually, and then select the INF file.
• Click on it, and it will install the driver.

Reinstall using Windows Update

• Open Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update
• Look for a link—View optional updates under the update button.
• In the next Windows, expand the Driver Updates. It may have a list of updates available. You can choose to install if you are facing an issue manually.

I hope the post was useful and easy to understand. You must take regular backup of your drivers, especially before installing a feature Windows update.