@jaxun: Try the third mirror, it was the only one that worked for me. The other two have exceeded their bandwidth quota.

In case it doesn't work here's another link to the file:
And here's a link to their donation page:

If the download link is violating a rule or policy, please feel free to delete this comment.

ARodX7

Ok, so I just figured out that it creates a .inf file in each and every subdirectory it creates. Thus, to do a complete restore you have to run a multitude of individual restores. Ack. So I'm revising my opinion to nearly useless but not completely.

Anomaly69

I grabbed it and tried it, but can't so far seem to figure out how to run a restore with it. It asks for some .inf file it never prompted me to create and if it created automatically I'll be damned if I can find it.

So, nice idea, poor implementation. End result = useless.

Anomaly69

@ARodX7: Needing the same feature. It may be worth trying to install, copy program files/folder to USB drive, and uninstalling to see if it would work.

Right now though, having trouble getting it downloaded.

jaxun

Seems like a very nice app. One extra thing I would love that would make it perfect: portable. Perfect for the job when you fix your family/friends computer and you don't know what kind of hardware they have installed in their pc/laptop.

Anyone know of a similar that has a portable version? Would be great for the "service" thumbdrive.

ARodX7

This would have been great a few months ago on my brand new Dell (when I wiped all the Dell BS off the new system). Getting the drivers reinstalled was a pain in the ass.

xxdesmus

Now THAT's way too cool!!

Henry

Pretty timely post! I'm planning on doing a fresh reinstall of my XP system this weekend. Will give this one a try. And for the record: I do keep all my original installers, but this looks a nice timesaver anyway.

apocalypsofacto

I just tried it with Vista (Ack! Spit!). It does work.
I wish I had had DD 5 or 10 years ago!

Deadhacker

How does this compare to DriverMax?

thewillum

Is this for Windows XP only or does it work with Vista?

kflott

@johnsmith1234:

yeah i also lost a bunch of other stuff with it(backups, 100+ gb of music), but i figured i'd just leave that alone since this post is about drivers.. ;)

sirfice

If I lost my external hard drive, drivers for my computer would be the least of my worries.

johnsmith1234

@johnsmith1234:

i keep drivers stored on and ext hdd as well, but this tool is about to save me a lot of time. just 2 weeks ago i was moving my desk around because my kid could reach everything. in the process i pushed my keyboard towards the back of the desk, and while doing so completely forgot about my external and shoved it right off the back of my desk, rendering it useless. lost all my drivers, install files, etc... bad day!

anyways, thanks for this, now i can just run this and have all my drivers backed up.. i will then also burn them to disc and sync them to another ext hdd on the network, JUST to be sure...

sirfice

@johnsmith1234:

No I don't throw away my installers, but many drivers come pre-installed. As well, Windows Updates (and third-party updaters) often replace files without giving you an easy option for backing them up.

So by keeping good backups of your driver installs plus a utility like this- all the better.

downstairs

@johnsmith1234: well actually i do back it up but it was an old computer and im not sure what happened to the CD i burned

vishal90

Not to depreciate the value of this utility (especially for preinstalled drivers) but am I the only one that keeps a copy of all the drivers for a system together on a CD or external HDD after searching for them? Do other people throw the installer away after installing the driver?

johnsmith1234

sweet! finally get to reformat my pc, as it was a DIY and couldnt find any of the drivers!

vishal90

if it works the way its supposed to then it will save me a lot of time looking, downloading, and installing those right drivers for my pc.

fredygamer

I downloaded it and tried it, seems to work. Since I am not planning a re-install anytime soon, I can't tell if this thing actually does any good... but it seems to back up everything (and I mean everything!).

Good find!

downstairs

This is one of the features I always wanted Windows to have out-of-the-box.

Will try this once my replacement laptop power brick appears in the mail. :\ If it works well, I'm going to pay for it, because hunting down drivers after a system rebuild ate countless hours of my life when I was a bench tech.

It_Figures

I will have to try this. After upgrading to Vista, I had to search for the correct drivers (was a pain). I was thinking about doing a fresh install, but did not want to go through that again.

bbobjoe

@johnsmith1234: you're not alone my friend. i too keep the installer media that came with my laptop plus keep the updates on a usb hard disk.

i also slipstream my copy of the orginal Vista with the latest updates that way there's no need to download most of them when i reinstall. a bit paranoid yeah but at least i don't end up crying for help in forums all over the net.

JadeEmperor

@ARodX7: @jaxun: It is portable. You can use Universal Extractor to extract the installer to a folder. Then move the contents of the {App} directory and the {Sys} directory to a folder of your choice.

joelena

The Lifehacker Effect has now...affected the website in specified in the post. I had to click on the 3rd or 4th download site in order to find a mirror that didn't have its bandwidth exceeded... oh well. at least I got it.

DMSaruman

@johnsmith1234: I definitely keep all my drivers. However, being in the computer support field I can't rely on my clients to do the same (even when we give them a pretty envelope with everything right there!) and so this utility will prove immensely useful for me!!

yanni85

Perfect timing

I'm burning a backup of files as I type this so I can wipe everything clean and start fresh this weekend.

Thanks again lh

thyme3421

Failed to run it on Windows Vista Home Premium. Get the following error message :
"C:\Windows\system32\STDOLE2.TLB
unable to register the type library.
Register TypeLib failed, code 0x8002801C.
Error accessing the OLE registry"

Any help appreciated

gfheiche

I'd like to find a combination of this program merged wiht some burning software so I could recommend it to complete luddites.

"Here. Run this program and give it a CD. It'll burn a backup of all your drivers."

That's be sweet.

Xanderificus

@joelena: Universal Extractor errored out when I tried this.

"Signature detected: Inno Setup Setup Data (5.2.3)
This is not directly supported, but i'll try to unpack it as version 5107; Version detected: 5203
Critical error: The setup files are corrupted. Please obtain a new copy of the program. Unpacking failed. This version is not supported."

However, installing the app and copying the folder from Program Files to a thumb drive worked just fine when running on another PC.

jaxun

Don't bother trying to download from the author's site. Exercise in futility right now. MajorGeeks has it.

[majorgeeks.com]

jaxun

Thank YOU! Just recently i was asked to fix a system where the user accidentally DELETED their CD drive drivers while attempting to cleanup their system manually. When i go to fix it im taking this with me.

Redneck R8C3 C8R DR1V3R

@jaxun: I guess you need the latest Inno Setup Upacker.

If anyone else would rather not install/copy/uninstall, download Universal Extractor and then replace "innounp.exe" in the bin subfolder with the newest version (2.0).

joelena

I forget how much I paid--$20/year--but I've been using driveragent.com for all of this. The plus is I can log in from any computer--work, home, friend, family--and update drivers and save the installers in a folder for the next time in a matter of minutes. It's more than paid for itself in time savings and other frustrations. And, the real plus, is the tech support. Some of the Intel drivers are not simple click, unzip, the driver is installed situations--the CLI comes in to play more often than I like.

rainbowsky

Yeah, DD's home site is choking on the LH effect, got it from MajorGeeks.

Thanks! Very timely, I need this...

BlogsOfSteel

I prefer DriverMax, it is super easy to use...the only downside (if you can call it that) is registering for the free serial number.

Tops in support, too.

maximillianx

I've been looking for something like this for a long time. Should help a lot with laptops, which now come pre-installed with drivers and a ton of "useful" apps that I'd rather live without.

Hopefully it will be easy to make a clean install with this little proggie.

zormal

So far, only Anomaly69 tried to restore the backuped drivers and with bad result. Anyone that has tried to restore with good results?

zolang

What about Driver Magician or the free ver, Driver Magician Lite?

RashidaRucker

@flypen:
Though, I wouldn't trust it with restore. Atleast I know where to goto if I have difficulty while re-installing the OS.

flypen

Just backed up my drivers. Simply awesome.

flypen

@downstairs: I just create a restore point before WU does a driver update. If after reboot, the drivers work fine then I remove the restore point (and disable System Restore altogether). I don't see a point in archiving revision after revision of a driver if the latest one functions properly. Which is basically all I would use Double Driver for; backing up my current drivers should I need to do a reformat and not want to hunt them down later.

Captain Bringdown

Oooh. Wish I'd had this a month ago when I was forced to finally wipe my computer. Took all day for my dad to find, burn, and install the drivers, and I don't think my Ethernet's working yet still.

dunvi

Soooo has anyone tried to reinstall the drivers yet? I'm with zolang... I'd like to know if anyone's been successful!

gankit

Yeah, I'm with the others wondering if an actual RESTORE is possible using this. My girlfriend's laptop's hard drive just Bought-The-Farm, and she conveniently cannot find the original Dell restore disc (there is a restore partition, but that does me a whole lot of bupkis if I'm replacing the whole HDD), so I'm in for a long week if Double Driver doesn't work.

LastVigilante