If y'all're upgrading your hard drive to an SSD, or reinstalling Windows for some other reason, making a backup of your drivers could save yous a lot of time.

Equally any long-fourth dimension Windows user will know, the operating arrangement gets progressively more sluggish over time. It isn't always Microsoft's fault, of form. Your hard bulldoze may make full upwards, or you may choose to install lots of programs and apps which start with Windows and run – unnecessarily - in the background consuming precious memory and CPU time.

If yous're looking to speed upward your PC performance and so outset take a await at our guide hither, but if you're not happy with the results and you're going to practice a make clean install, you may exist wondering how to collect together all the drivers and so you can quickly install them again when Windows is upward and running.

How to back up drivers in Windows - manufacturers website

There are many utilities – mostly free – which claim to be able to fill-in and restore drivers, but when you come to use that backup y'all may well find that it doesn't work. The utility might non accept backed up all the necessary files, and we've heard several reports of Windows throwing upwards errors such equally "this driver is non digitally signed".

The best program is to go to your PC or laptop manufacturer's website and download all the drivers (which will be the latest versions) for your specific model before you start the installation. This manner, yous won't exist left without networking drivers, and therefore no way to get online and download some.

However, you shouldn't need too many drivers if y'all're installing Windows x equally it works out of the box with a lot of mutual hardware, and will automatically download and install drivers besides.

How do I backup Windows drivers?

As we've said, there are many utilities which claim to dorsum up every driver, so you can take your choice of the free ones, including DriverBackup! There are no guarantees, and we certainly don't recommend relying on these to do a perfect task.

Instead, you should download the latest network, sound, graphics, chipset and other drivers from your hardware manufacturer'southward website. Annotation that y'all volition generally take to go to a laptop maker'southward website for graphics drivers, every bit those you can get from Nvidia or AMD won't necessarily work. For a PC, you lot can – and should – go directly to Nvidia or AMD.

How to back up drivers in Windows - manufacturers website

You tin can also bank check your Downloads binder for recent drivers (in cipher files, folders or single files with .exe or .msi extensions). These will typically be for peripherals and accessories such as printers, game controllers, scanners, gaming mice, graphics cards and activeness trackers. Copy these – and the drivers you've downloaded from the manufacturer - to an external or portable drive so you know where they are and won't get deleted when you reinstall Windows.

If you're upgrading Windows, then your files, programs and settings should be kept. This as well includes drivers, and so by and large there'due south no need to have a re-create for installing them afterwards. Occasionally a driver won't work with the newer version of Windows, only in that case you lot'd have to download a new i from the manufacturer's website anyway. With Windows 10 you might just need to uninstall whatever problematic hardware in the Control Panel and add it over again.

When you're installing Windows on a new hard drive drivers (and files, programs and settings) won't exist there and will need to be transferred dorsum from wherever you stored them. As mentioned already Windows 10 will find and install the vast bulk of drivers automatically. And if information technology doesn't run Windows Update from the new Settings app, as that should fill in whatsoever holes.

As long equally your hardware isn't a decade old or really obscure, yous shouldn't accept any issues.

The but commuter you'll want to install yourself is likely to exist for your graphics carte, every bit it'south inadvisable to run Microsoft'due south generic version, or an old AMD or Nvidia version. So head to Nvidia or AMD's site and get the latest version for your graphics menu.

Organization drivers, such as the motherboard chipset and all of its features: networking, audio, USB ports etc., should work as expected. With laptops, yous should find that the touchpad and touchscreen (if fitted) piece of work, only manufacturer-specific shortcut keys may not.

In that case, if you haven't managed to support whatever drivers or utilities that are specific to your PC or laptop, head to the manufacturer's website and look for the latest versions. In full general, y'all don't need a Windows x driver for Windows x: drivers for Windows 7 and 8 frequently piece of work fine. Merely brand sure you download the right 32- or 64-bit version according to the version of Windows you've installed (64-bit in the vast majority of cases these days).

How to check if any drivers are missing in Windows

In Device Manager (which yous'll find in the Control Panel) you will encounter if any hardware isn't working by a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark next to it. Ordinarily, this appears because the driver is missing.

How to back up drivers in Windows - check if hardware is working

 In the instance above it'due south difficult to work out exactly which device isn't working, simply for USB devices simply bank check everything that you plug into your computer as it could exist a USB hub or some other USB accessory which doesn't take the proper drivers installed.

You can right-click on an item in Device Director to try to get Windows to automatically find a commuter, or install one manually.