Save Windows driver to file - how it works

If you want to reinstall Windows, you can save your current drivers in a file. We show you how to do this.

Secure Windows drivers with Double Driver

With the free tool "Double Driver" save your drivers in a file and restore the data later:

1. To do this, open "Double Driver" and click on "Scan Current System".
2. The program lists all of your installed drivers. With the menu item "Select" you can select all drivers or sort the entries according to special criteria. Alternatively, mark the files to be backed up with the respective checkbox.
3. Now click on "Backup Now" and select the location of the file.
4. In the section "Output" activate the option "Single file self extract (executable)".
5. "Double Driver" then creates an EXE file with all your drivers. Simply run this on the new system and install the files.

Create driver list in Windows

If you switch from Windows 7 to Windows 8, the driver backup often leads to problems. Here it is better if you compile a list of your installed drivers and then install the files individually. Windows will help you:

1. Open the "Run" dialog with the key combination [Windows] + [R].
2. Enter "cmd" and confirm with [Enter]. Now the command prompt opens.
3. Enter the command "driverquery / v fo csv> C: \ Users \ Username \ Desktop Driver.csv" here. Replace the "Username" section with your own user name.
4. Windows then creates a CSV file with all installed drivers on your desktop. You can open these with Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice. Then reinstall the appropriate drivers on your new system.

To ensure that you always back up the latest versions, you should have the drivers in Windows 7 updated automatically.