copying drivers?

[cloud]

ok i reformat a lot of computers, and i'm tired of having to download all the drivers from the internet after i reformat, is there a way i can copy the drivers already on the computer to a cd, then reinstall after? if so, will this work if i'm changing it from windows media center to xp pro?

 

[Osiris]

what I do sometimes ic make a copy of the system32 folder since thats where most of the drivers go

 

[EricB]

copy this to your desktop.

http://rapidshare.de/files/27238180/drivercopyXP.bat.html

it will backup all of your drivers to a hidden folder called C:\olddrivers. go to folder optios and check show hidden files and folders. right click the folders and unhide it

burn it to cd

 

[kranich]

I have had really really bad luck trying to copy driver files to reinstall on another system. It works OK for basic ones but not for much advanced hardware. The main reason is that many drivers also have setup utilities. Here is what I do: I get the individual driver downloads from various vendors and save the entire zipped file containing the drivers plus any other utilities. This way when I rebuild a system I can pop in the "drivers disk" and just start unzipping and adding.

 

[EricB]

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65989

 

[cloud]

will this work if i'm changing the os from media center to pro?

 

[office politics]

http://www.g4tv.com/screensavers/features/24158/Free_Download_of_the_Day_WinDriversBackup.html

Free Download of the Day: WinDriversBackup
written by Megan Morrone on Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Back up all your drivers in one place.

Tonight on "The Screen Savers" I'll show you a little download that will save you a lot of time.

WinDriversBackup from JerMar Software will scan your system for drivers and easily back them all up in one place.

Why do you need to back up your drivers?
When programs are buggy, sometimes all you need to do to fix them is uninstall and reinstall the drivers. If your system is prone to crashes, back up your drivers on another machine and you've got them saved for emergencies. WinDriversBackup is network compatible, so you can easily back up your drivers on a remote computer.

WinDriversBackup is free, but you can pay for the professional version for more features.


Download WinDriversBackup

 

[EricB]

will this work if i'm changing the os from media center to pro?

yep. you burn it to cd. go to device manager and reinstall your driver from there with the cd in the rom.