How to Backup (Export) Installed Drivers from Windows

Built-in Windows tools allow you to backup (export) all third-party device drivers installed on your computer to a specified directory. This eliminates the need to manually search for and download drivers when you install (reinstall) Windows on a machine.

How to Export Drivers from Windows with Command Prompt

To export all third-party (non-Microsoft) drivers installed on Windows to the C:\drivers directory, open an elevated PowerShell console and run the command:

Export-WindowsDriver –Online -Destination c:\export-drivers

A similar DISM command to export the installed drivers:

dism /online /export-driver /destination:C:\Drivers

This command extracts all third-party drivers from the Windows Drivers Store. Each driver and its dependency files (SYS, DLL, EXE, etc.) are saved in their own directory, which is named according to the name of the driver’s INF file.

You can create a table containing the class, manufacturer, version, and date of the driver, and then export the list of drivers to a CSV file:

$BackupDrv = Export-WindowsDriver -Online -Destination c:\drivers
$BackupDrv| Select-Object ClassName, ProviderName, Date, Version |Export-Csv c:\drivers\backup_drivers_list.txt -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

If you need to extract drivers from an offline Windows image mounted in the c:\mount\winimage directory:

Export-WindowsDriver -Path c:\mount\winimage -Destination c:\drivers

or
DISM /Image:c:\mount\winimage /Export-Driver /Destination:C:\drivers

Exporting Windows Drivers Using PNPUtil

To manage drivers in Windows, you can also use the PNPUtil.exe command line tool (available on older versions of Windows). Run the command to export all installed drivers from the Driver Store:

pnputil.exe /export-driver * c:\export-drivers

The Export-WindowsDriver and DISM commands allow you to backup all the installed drivers at once. The pnputil command allows you to export only the specific device driver.

List the installed drivers:

pnputil.exe /enum-drivers

Or use PowerShell to filter drivers by type and/or vendor (in this example, we are looking for Realtek NIC drivers):

Get-WindowsDriver -Online | where { ($_.ProviderName -like "Realtek") –and ($_.ClassName -like "Net")}

Copy the INF file name of the driver you want to export and run the commands:

mkdir c:\drivers\realtek
pnputil.exe /export-driver oem5.inf c:\drivers\realtek

How to Install (Restore) Drivers from a Backup on Windows

You can use the driver backup directory to quickly reinstall device drivers or install them on a new device after a clean Windows installation.

The device drivers in Windows can be installed one by one. To do this, right-click on the driver INF file and select Install.

Or you can install all the drivers from the specified folder (including subdirectories) at once:

pnputil.exe /add-driver C:\export-drivers\*.inf /subdirs /install

You can import drivers into an offline Windows image by using the Add-Driver parameter of the DISM command (in this example, we allow unsigned driver installation):

DISM /image:c:\win_image /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\export-drivers /Recurse /ForceUnsigned