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I remember drivers for some hardware in Win3.x rarely excedeed the size of a few kb. Then with win9x they started growing, up to a point, where today I have to download 152 Mb (!) package to get my modem & sound card working.

So I ask you, what do they have in them that make them so big ?

I understand that software has also grown, but so have its features, interconnectibility with other software etc. etc. - drivers still have only one function. What makes them so gigantic (installation setup, the GUI of their interface sometimes ?) ? What ?

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Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered! – Diago Dec 23 '09 at 16:15
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@Diago - How exactly is this argumentative or requires extended discussion? I explicitly mentioned the difference between software (in which case your argument may stand to a point) and drivers. In any case, it does't matter now. Your rep preceedes you, as a person who doesn't really listen to voices of others when making their decisions, but it is my strong opinion that this question can be answered quite straight forwardly. <sigh> this used to be a nice board in the old days. Nowadays, it's more about moving questions and defending them against closing, than it is about answering them. </..> – ldigas Dec 23 '09 at 17:54
1. This was flagged by multiple users. 2. Determining why a driver is a certain size, is totally subjective. It is a decision made by the manufacturer, and any "valid" answer is sheer speculation. 3. If you are not happy with my moderation, feel free to e-mail team@superuser.com or even post a complaint on meta.stackoverflow.com. This will give everyone and opportunity to raise their views, and if I am found unfit, have me removed. Simple. – Diago Dec 23 '09 at 20:35
Furthermore, from the FAQ I quoted, this is an extended discussion. Which is discouraged. – Diago Dec 23 '09 at 20:37
whatever you say - enjoy ... – ldigas Dec 23 '09 at 22:01
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closed as not constructive by Diago Dec 23 '09 at 16:14

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2 Answers

up vote 14 down vote accepted

Majority of that 151mb package is not the driver itself, you are being mislead by the packaged junk that usually comes with a modem/wireless/soundcard drivers.

Most of that comes with its own 'dock' or 'client' that is to help you manage/use it better than in windows.

A perfect example of bloat is the 250mb download for Logitech webcam drivers. If you want it for skype for instance, you need to get the package and then it will try to install all this face tracking / hat wearing crud you don't need (or maybe you want but then later don't need).

So in closing, the drivers didn't really grow THAT much, they just come with more crud on the side.

I should add the drivers can sometimes be extracted from those big ~150mb downloads, but you have to get the 150mb to get the small kb driver in the end. Its the fault of the driver packagers for making you download bloatware to get their drivers.

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Yes, that makes sense. But it still leaves the question of what is in those other drivers ... I mean, HP notebook, not one driver is below 10 megs. And some don't even have an installation setup (nor anything ... just zip file with ... stuff). – ldigas Dec 23 '09 at 19:37
A lot of the growth is also 'installers' since we have many compatible OS's now (meaning Win versions) they installers need to support them, 98 -> Win 7. That is my best guess, also some installers add images (bmp) which increase their file size. – Jakub Jan 7 '10 at 14:50
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up vote 1 down vote

Windows 3.11 FW was shipped on 8 floppy disks, Windows 7 on a DVD ... face it, things have gotten slightly more complex today. :)

yesterday i had to download the Windows 7 driver for an HP Officejet, size 370 MB ... WTF??? do the really need something like 400.000.000 bytes of code to spill some ink onto a sheet of paper? :)

however, most drivers can be stripped (e.g. with Universal Exctractor or Total Commander, yes, i have seen a screenshot on a HP website recommending TC to extract a driver!) and manually installing the bare essential will suffice in many cases.

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370 GB ?!?! Did you mean MB? – warren Dec 23 '09 at 15:16
ooops ... cheers for the heads-up. :) – Molly7244 Dec 23 '09 at 15:19
And what's even scarier about 7 being on a DVD. It's compressed and actually expands to be even larger than a DVD. – Chris Dec 23 '09 at 15:49
ah well, Windows 3.x expanded as well ... most files on those floppires were compressed too (e.g. KRNL386.EX_ expanded to KRNL386.EXE) – Molly7244 Dec 23 '09 at 15:52
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