I was wondering if anyone had a cookbook / algorithm of how you would hunt down drivers installed on a computer and back them up.

I know there are products like DriverMax, but they don't show source code. I'd like to know how programs like DriverMax etc work?

For instance, say you have total access to the filesystem and registry, but the machine is not booted (or can't boot). I have some ideas but there are some disconnects in my head. I wondered if this was already documented?

Thanks!

[Edit: I guess I should say, I want to do this for XP]

Edited November 27, 200718 yr by bobco

Maybe I'll just work through the problem here and see if anyone wants to chime in....

It seems as though you would scan the registry under:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class

Because this seems to have the most information about drivers.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum

and

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI

also are interesting...

In \Enum it obviously shows the hardware drivers that are installed. Does anyone know if Control\Class only hold drivers for only those installed? Or does it hold more? If it holds more, maybe you gather the entries in \Control\Class and toss out any that don't appear in \Enum?! Does this sound like the right approach?

Thanks...

grab the %windir%\inf directory as a starting point, then get a copy of %windir%\system32\drivers

you are right bobco, that all the info is stored under that class key, but looking through it all is a pain in the arse. I wonder if just those 2 directories above would suffice?

Here is what I did with mine: http://www.msfn.org/board/Utility-Driver-B...st&p=568879

Query WMI for Win32_PnPEntity, use this information to get some info about the device from the registry, like Driver Class, driver inf name, Driver provider name, amongst others.

Then I dig through the associated INF file to get the CAT file and the system files and copy them from the system to a folder structure to match the original install folder structure.