How to export installed device driver on Windows 7 for later use? [duplicate]

Question

I see myself confronted with an unusual problem:

I own a laptop which was (past) served with an installed initial disk image with all the required drives already installed on it. Within the installed initial disk image was a proprietary device driver. Also a tool to create recovery DVDs. So until here a common "modern" setup like most laptop manufacturers use today.

The issue is that both the recovery DVD created from the tool and recovery DVD ordered from the manufacturer does not contain the one device driver which I need in order to use the device.

After 5 unsuccessful "repairs" (replacing the totally intact/working device) the manufacturer finally replaced the whole laptop so I do have the required device driver again pre-installed (initial disk image) on my laptop.

Off course I could just make a backup of the image but there is a catch... It is an old Windows 7 image. And there are several factors that requires me to perform a clean installation of the operating system (Windows 10). You may point out that I also do not have the other device drivers in this case but those are available for download on the download website of the laptop manufacturer. All the other drivers but not the one in question. The laptop manufacturer and the device manufacturer both refuses to send me the required device driver.

So: How to extract an pre-installed device driver on Windows 7 to use/install it on Windows 10 after clean install. The driver itself works great on Windows 10 (verified via Windows 7 to 10 upgrade process).

Answer 1

How can I extract a pre-installed device driver on Win 7 to use/install it on Win 10?

There are programs available that will back up and restore drivers, but I don't know if they will work across different windows versions.

Here is a manual procedure which should do the trick:

In all versions of Windows the drivers are stored in the C:\Windows\System32 folder in the sub-folders Drivers, DriverStore and if your installation has one, DRVSTORE. These folders contain all the hardware drivers for your operating system. In the folder location, C represents the drive on which you have Windows installed, this may be a different letter on your system.

You can simply copy these folders out to seperate storage (DO NOT MOVE THEM) such as an external USB drive or Pen Drive. When time comes to reinstall the drivers you can copy the folders back.

Now there are a couple of ways to reinstall the drivers. The easiest way is to simply restart the PC when the driver folders have been copied back to see if Windows automatically detects drivers for uninstalled hardware. This is possible, but won't be the case for all your hardware.

To install drivers for the missing hardware you need to open the Device Manager. You can do this by typing Device Manager into the search box in the Start Menu. You will see all your uninstalled drivers highlighted with a small yellow warning triangle icon. You need to Right-Click on each one and select Update Driver. Because the correct drivers are already in the drivers folders on your computer, telling Windows to find the drivers automatically should always install the correct one. You may however, in some cases, have to tell the Device Manager which folder to look for. You can either point it directly to one of the two drivers folders, or just at the System32 folder; making sure you tick the box "include subfolders".

There is an important caveat with this. The drivers for 64 bit (x64) and 32 bit (x86) versions of Windows are usually different. This means that if you copy x86 drivers into an x64 copy of Windows; or vice-versa, they will not install. Windows will recognise them as being incorrect. You cannot use this method therefore when migrating your system from the 32-bit version of Windows to the 64-bit version when, for example, adding more memory to your PC.

Source Backing up and Restoring Windows Drivers