driver backups

[Jo-Anne]

I've read about several free programs that offer driver backups and updates.
I'm leary about updates, but I suspect it would be a good idea to back up my
drivers now and then. I tried downloading two of the programs but without
success so far. One of them wanted information before allowing the download
but wouldn't accept it when I provided it. The other came in a zipped file
that unzipped to created a folder with more files and then wanted me to
unzip these files even though they were already unzipped. I gave up.

So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's reasonably
easy to install and use?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[Ken Springer]

I've read about several free programs that offer driver backups and updates.
I'm leary about updates, but I suspect it would be a good idea to back up my
drivers now and then. I tried downloading two of the programs but without
success so far. One of them wanted information before allowing the download
but wouldn't accept it when I provided it. The other came in a zipped file
that unzipped to created a folder with more files and then wanted me to
unzip these files even though they were already unzipped. I gave up.

So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's reasonably
easy to install and use?

I'm not afraid of updates, use them all the time. But I wouldn't use
any of those sites at all.

I'd find out what non-MS drivers you have, and go to the appropriate
site and download the latest drivers manually.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[BillW50]

In

I've read about several free programs that offer driver backups and
updates. I'm leary about updates, but I suspect it would be a good
idea to back up my drivers now and then. I tried downloading two of
the programs but without success so far. One of them wanted
information before allowing the download but wouldn't accept it when
I provided it. The other came in a zipped file that unzipped to
created a folder with more files and then wanted me to unzip these
files even though they were already unzipped. I gave up.
So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's
reasonably easy to install and use?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

The ones I've used are:

DriverBackup! (free)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

Driver Magician ($29.95)
http://www.drivermagician.com/

Driver Genius ($29.95)
http://www.driver-soft.com/

Although if you make system backups like you should, driver backups are
not really necessary since the system backup has them anyway. The last
two can sometimes be found on www.giveawayoftheday.com for free.

 

[Nil]

So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's
reasonably easy to install and use?

No. And every single "drive update" service I've ever seen falsely
advertises as free, then hits you up for money later. They are a rip-
off.

They're an unnecessary crock o' dung anyway. If you have a commercial
computer, it would have come with a set of usable drivers on a disk,
anyway. If not, you can get them from the vendor and burn them to a
disk yourself. That's your backup.

Using the latest drivers is mostly a good idea in general, but usually
not necessary. If they work, there is no compelling need to update
them, and some good reasons NOT to do so unless you really know what
you're doing.

 

[Jo-Anne]

I'm not afraid of updates, use them all the time. But I wouldn't use any
of those sites at all.

I'd find out what non-MS drivers you have, and go to the appropriate site
and download the latest drivers manually.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Thank you, Ken. What I'm after, though, is simply backing up the drivers I
have, so I can reinstall them if necessary.

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne]

In

The ones I've used are:

DriverBackup! (free)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

Driver Magician ($29.95)
http://www.drivermagician.com/

Driver Genius ($29.95)
http://www.driver-soft.com/

Although if you make system backups like you should, driver backups are
not really necessary since the system backup has them anyway. The last two
can sometimes be found on www.giveawayoftheday.com for free.

Thank you, Bill! I'll check into DriverBackup! And I've added the giveaway
website to Google Reader.

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne]

No. And every single "drive update" service I've ever seen falsely
advertises as free, then hits you up for money later. They are a rip-
off.

They're an unnecessary crock o' dung anyway. If you have a commercial
computer, it would have come with a set of usable drivers on a disk,
anyway. If not, you can get them from the vendor and burn them to a
disk yourself. That's your backup.

Using the latest drivers is mostly a good idea in general, but usually
not necessary. If they work, there is no compelling need to update
them, and some good reasons NOT to do so unless you really know what
you're doing.

Hi, Nil,

I shouldn't have mentioned the updating at all. What I'm really after is a
driver backup utility--just to have something separate from my full backups.

Jo-Anne

 

[Nil]

I shouldn't have mentioned the updating at all. What I'm really
after is a driver backup utility--just to have something separate
from my full backups.

Just acquire the driver files from your computer vendor, if they
haven't supplied them already, and burn them to a CD-R yourself.
There's no need to get involved with those useless scam services.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've read about several free programs that offer driver backups and updates.
I'm leary about updates, but I suspect it would be a good idea to back up my
drivers now and then. I tried downloading two of the programs but without
success so far. One of them wanted information before allowing the download
but wouldn't accept it when I provided it. The other came in a zipped file
that unzipped to created a folder with more files and then wanted me to
unzip these files even though they were already unzipped. I gave up.

So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's reasonably
easy to install and use?

Several points:

1. There's no need to backup drivers. If you ever need any of them
again, just get them again from the web site where you got them the
first time.

2. Despite what I say in number 1, if you do want to back up your
drivers, you don't need any special program to do it. Simply copy them
all to a thumb drive, CD, or whatever.

3. Any of the programs or web sites that do unneeded things like this
are not to be trusted. I would avoid them all like the plague.

4. You should also avoid updating a driver simply because a newer one
is available. The only reason to update a driver is that you know that
the new one fixes a problem you are experiencing in the old one or has
some new feature that you desire. To install an unneeded update is
just looking for trouble.



Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

 

[BillW50]

The ones I've used are:

DriverBackup! (free)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

Driver Magician ($29.95)
http://www.drivermagician.com/

Driver Genius ($29.95)
http://www.driver-soft.com/

[]
How easy are these to use - in particular, to restore from?[/QUOTE]

Both the last two which are the commercial versions are far better than
the freebie. Although if I recall correctly, they both have trial
versions. And some computer setups I liked one better than the other. So
I would try both on a given system and see which one I liked better.
They both are easy, but one will detect more drivers than the other one
for a given system.

 

[Paul]

Hi, Nil,

I shouldn't have mentioned the updating at all. What I'm really after is a
driver backup utility--just to have something separate from my full backups.

Jo-Anne

When I got my laptop, in addition to burning three DVDs as a backup image
of the Windows 7 installation, the Acer software also burned a "driver CD".
Now, I haven't wasted time looking at it, but my guess would be, there
would be drivers for everything from Touchpad to Wifi on there, suitable
for usage with a Microsoft reinstallation DVD.

Drivers should really be acquired "fresh" from the manufacturer site,
or with enough leg-work, you can also trace down drivers from the chip
makers. For example, my motherboard has a Marvell network chip, and
I can find network drivers on the marvell.com site. My Wifi is broadcom,
so I could look at their site and so on.

Anyway, check the set of optical media your laptop had you burn when you
got the machine, and it's possible you already have a full set. Each would
be a proper installer, making an entry in Add/Remove, loading the registry
with settings if needed, and dumping the DLLs into the Windows "store".

Paul

 

[BillW50]

Drivers should really be acquired "fresh" from the manufacturer site,
or with enough leg-work, you can also trace down drivers from the chip
makers. For example, my motherboard has a Marvell network chip, and
I can find network drivers on the marvell.com site. My Wifi is broadcom,
so I could look at their site and so on.

Have you ever worked on a Dell, Paul? Going to the chip maker and
getting the latest driver and trying to install on a Dell can lead you
into a big surprise. For starters, it might refuse to install. There is
a trick and it requires a non-Dell computer to get it to install, but
that is for another thread.

And if the computer is a bit old (even a year or two), the manufacture
most likely has an old driver on their website (they don't often keep up
with the chip maker anyway).

 

[Paul]

Have you ever worked on a Dell, Paul? Going to the chip maker and
getting the latest driver and trying to install on a Dell can lead you
into a big surprise. For starters, it might refuse to install. There is
a trick and it requires a non-Dell computer to get it to install, but
that is for another thread.

And if the computer is a bit old (even a year or two), the manufacture
most likely has an old driver on their website (they don't often keep up
with the chip maker anyway).

The only drivers with special properties, are video drivers for laptops.
There is no plug and play information for the LCD panel, and so the
driver on the laptop manufacturer's site contains a fixed identification
of the LCD panel resolution.

Otherwise, there is nothing special about drivers. They're mated to
plug and play identification information the hardware provides.

If a manufacturer chooses to "repackage" a driver, which happens
occasionally, then it is up to the repackager to do it properly.

Lets take an example. Say you suspect Dell has done a poor job on
a driver, by wrapping it with their own installer. Say the chip is
made by Marvell. You have the option of going to the Marvell site
and getting an NDIS driver directly from the chip maker.

It isn't rocket science, sir.

Paul

 

[BillW50]

The only drivers with special properties, are video drivers for laptops.
There is no plug and play information for the LCD panel, and so the
driver on the laptop manufacturer's site contains a fixed identification
of the LCD panel resolution.

Otherwise, there is nothing special about drivers. They're mated to
plug and play identification information the hardware provides.

If a manufacturer chooses to "repackage" a driver, which happens
occasionally, then it is up to the repackager to do it properly.

Lets take an example. Say you suspect Dell has done a poor job on
a driver, by wrapping it with their own installer. Say the chip is
made by Marvell. You have the option of going to the Marvell site
and getting an NDIS driver directly from the chip maker.

It isn't rocket science, sir.

For you and I, it isn't. But to most here, it might as well be rocket
science. ;-)

 

[Char Jackson]

Hi, Nil,

I shouldn't have mentioned the updating at all. What I'm really after is a
driver backup utility--just to have something separate from my full backups.

Nil and Ken Blake have it right. Stay far away from those so-called
driver backup sites and either create your own driver store or simply
get them fresh the next time you need them.

 

[Char Jackson]

For you and I, it isn't. But to most here, it might as well be rocket
science. ;-)

So, you get contradicted and you instantly change your position? What
happened to the promised "big surprise" and the installation trick
that requires a second computer?

Nice.

 

[dadiOH]

I've read about several free programs that offer driver backups and
updates. I'm leary about updates, but I suspect it would be a good
idea to back up my drivers now and then. I tried downloading two of
the programs but without success so far. One of them wanted
information before allowing the download but wouldn't accept it when
I provided it. The other came in a zipped file that unzipped to
created a folder with more files and then wanted me to unzip these
files even though they were already unzipped. I gave up.
So...can anyone recommend a free driver backup program that's
reasonably easy to install and use?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

Haven't used it for a while but I found My Drivers workable...
http://www.zhangduo.com/driverbackup.html

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[dadiOH]

Haven't used it for a while but I found My Drivers workable...
http://www.zhangduo.com/driverbackup.html

To elaborate a bit IIRC...

1. It will identify all drivers or just non-MS drivers

2. You can back up all or just an individual one. Probably several but not
all too.

3. You can restore en mase or individually

I always found it easy to use and trouble free.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[Char Jackson]

In message <[email protected]>, Char Jackson

I'd agree about staying away from any _site_ that offers to back
(anything) up: <snip>

However, programmes that backup drivers _locally_ (probably to CD/DVD)
might well be of interest to me.

We're different in that regard.

I see no value in attempting to back up *installed* drivers. I'd much
rather back up the package that the driver came in from the source so
that I can easily reinstall it again if I need to.

 

[glee]

We're different in that regard.

I see no value in attempting to back up *installed* drivers. I'd much
rather back up the package that the driver came in from the source so
that I can easily reinstall it again if I need to.

Exactly.... same here. I don't see the point of trying to back up
already installed drivers, when it makes more sense to find and backup
the installers for those drivers, which is what I have done for years.