A backup of those drivers can be a safeguard in case of computer problems, for example when everything needs to be formatted and newly installed. A driver backup before that process could be used to restore the drivers once the system has been setup again.

Semper Driver Backup is a free backup software for the Windows operating system. Unlike standard driver backup programs it runs the backup on all system devices and components. That’s good on the one hand as it makes sure that everything gets backed up, not so good on the other hand for keeping an overview and managing the device backups.

The drivers are backed up with a click on the backup drivers button in the program interface. The software displays a list of drivers and their inf files in the interface.

One of the biggest issues of this technique is that it does not seem possible to restore a single driver from within the application interface. If you click the Import Drivers button all drivers that have been backed up before will be restored.

While that’s convenient if the hardware of the system has not changed, it could be problematic if hardware has been replaced or added.

Drivers are on the other hand placed in a folder under My Documents. Some are stored with inf files that can theoretically be used to install the drivers, provided that it is possible to identify the correct inf file of a device which may not be as easy as it sounds with more than 200 driver files backed up and cryptic names like netrasa.inf or nettun.inf. It is however possible to use the information displayed by Semper Driver Backup to link files to drivers.

It is not difficulty to use, provided that all you want to do is to backup all system drivers or restore them.

How does Semper Driver Backup compare to previously reviewed applications like Double Driver, Driver Magician Lite or the portable application Driver Backup 2?

The core difference is that Semper Driver Backup can only backup and restore all existing drivers whereas the previously reviewed applications can backup and restore drivers selectively.

Interested users can download the backup software from the developer website. It is compatible with all recent versions of the Windows operating system (via).

Driver Magician Lite offers to do just that: Backup Windows device drivers so that they can be restored whenever they are needed which in turn means no more searching for driver CDs when a driver is needed.

The program comes as a portable version and installer. Probably the most convenient feature of the application is that it marks user-installed drivers in red. Those drivers have been installed by the user of the system after the operating system has been installed. They usually consist of video card, audio, printer and other third party device drivers.

Drivers can be backed up by selecting them in the application and clicking on start backup afterwards. This spawns a folder browser menu to select the folder the drivers will be stored in.

All drivers are stored in a direct format that Windows will recognize if pointed to that location. It is also possible to install the device driver directly from the backup folder with a right-click on the inf file and the selection of Install from the context menu.

All drivers are stored in their own folder to make the identification as easy as possible.

Driver Magician Lite is a handy program for users who want to reinstall, upgrade or install the Windows operating system. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows and available for download at the developer website.

The first type is every now and then updated by Microsoft, while the second type needs to be updated manually. That’s a huge problem, as outdated drivers can result in incompatibilities or other technical problems.

Just like there is no option to scan for third party software updates in Windows, there is no option to scan for third party driver updates. A cloud based community driven solution would be helpful for many users.

Until Microsoft decides to create such a feature, it is up to third party software to fill the gap.

SlimDrivers, is a free software to check for driver updates in Windows. The program is developed by the same company that created yesterday’s SlimCleaner.

Both programs are offered as beta versions, and it may be that both will turn commercial in the future. A lack of information on the developer website, and registration links in the programs that currently lead to 404 pages seem to confirm that.

SlimDrivers is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7. The software displays PC overview information on startup. A click on the big Start Scan button scans the system for hardware and installed system drivers.

slimdrivers

These information are then complied and presented to the user. More precisely, the hardware that is not using the latest driver is displayed, with options to download the updated driver directly from within the software.

An ignore option is available in case false positives are detected by the program. Those will then be ignored in future scans.

The program scans not only for drivers but also for Windows Updates and program updates. SlimDrivers displays a prompt to create a System Restore point before updates are downloaded and installed.

SlimDrivers can furthermore backup and restore installed drivers. Those options are displayed in the header icon bar. All devices that are currently connected to the computer are displayed in the driver backup window. Here it is possible to select some or all drivers for the backup.

driver backup

Backups are created in a way that every driver can be installed without the software. Each backed up driver is stored in its own folder from where it can be copied or installed.

The software can also be used to uninstall drivers from the computer system, and to schedule automatic checks for driver updates.

SlimDrivers is a professional looking software program to update, backup, restore and uninstall drivers in the Windows operating system. The beta version stopped responding on one of our test systems whenever a scan was initiated. It ran fine on another system though.

SlimDrivers is available for download at the developer website.

The software application has a surprisingly small size of just 1 Megabyte and runs pretty solid and fast. After the initial scan of the system’s device drivers a backup can be initiated. It is up to the user to backup all device drivers or only the drivers that have been selected. The backup software provides filters to display only OEM or third party drivers as well as only those drivers that have been digitally signed or are fully portable.

The device drivers can be stored on the computer’s hard drive using custom descriptions, filenames, path formats and device path formats. The device drivers will be stored in separate device folders by default. Each folder contains the drivers of that device. This can be a single .inf file or dozens of files that are needed for the device.

Once a device driver backup has been created it can be used to restore that set of drivers on the computer system. You can either restore a single device driver by installing the driver from the directory it was saved in or all device drivers from withing the device driver backup software.

Backup and restoration of backed up device drivers is a quick and easy process which makes Device Driver 2 a perfect companion for a USB device with enough storage space to store the drivers.

The device driver backup software comes with a few command line parameters to automate the backup and restoration process further. There is also a command line builder which is currently only available in Italian language. It should however be relatively easy to use it to create the parameters needed for the desired operation.

Once the backup of the drivers has been created it can be imported again at any time using Driver Max again. This is great if you have to reinstall your system because you could update all drivers in one go with just one restart required afterwards.

Another application would be in companies that use the same type of hardware on many of their computers. They could use Driver Max to update all of their computers with the latest drivers speeding up the process.

The ‘Check for Driver Updates’ function did not seem to work properly though. Nothing happened after clicking the button that is supposed to check if updates for my drivers exist. It could be that none exist but a short message that this is the case would be appropriate and less confusing for the user.

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Driver Max 3

This is great for instance if your hard drive crashes and you have to install your operating system again. Instead of downloading all the drivers again you can simply use the saved ones by Driver Grabber. It could also be useful to analyze drivers for instance.

Using Driver Grabber is really easy. Just download and unpack the files to any location on your hard drive and execute the only .exe file from that directory. Driver Grabber will automatically begin to scan your pc and save all drivers that it can find in a directory named drivers in the same directory.

Driver Max is a free software for Microsoft Windows that is able to export all drivers from the system and import them at a later stage. It should be noted that you will have to request a free registration key from the developers to use Driver Max for more than 30 days. I would suggest to use either a throw-away email address or one that you do not rely on.

Using Driver Max can’t be easier. There are actually only three buttons that have a functionality that is important for the process of backing up all drivers and importing them again. The first button is called Export Drivers and will load a wizard that guides you through the process. You may select all or only some drivers, choose which drivers are displayed using the settings button and finally select a folder where Driver Max should save the drivers to. The drivers can be compressed which seems useful to me.

The import button installs all the exported drivers back to the system which is very convenient if you have to reinstall your system. The last button is called Display Report which scans the system for drivers and displays them in a list. You can export the list as html or text. This is a great way to analyze driver related problems.