How To Backup Third Party Drivers In Windows 10

In order for hardware devices to transmit data and communicate with the operating system, drivers (also referred to as device drivers), must be Installed and fully functional. Without a given driver assigned to a hardware component, It may fail to operate entirely, hence It's vital to keep them updated. What's also Important Is to backup drivers, so In this tutorial, I will show you how to do just that, natively within Windows.


Before I begin, as per the title of this article, this pertains to third-party drivers such as those Installed by a particular software application. Nowadays, most (If not all) computers come with a factory OEM recovery partition, therefore upon performing a clean Installation of Windows, every driver will also be Installed. This however, does not Include any third-party drivers.

As such, I will demonstrate how to export (backup) all third-party drivers, by using the Windows native utility named PowerShell. The process Is extremely simple, so without further delay, let's get this tutorial started.


Step One:
The first thing we must do, Is access PowerShell with elevated privileges. To do this, open the Search bar, enter powershell, and on the search result at the top, right-click It and select Run as administrator.

Step Two:
Next, enter the following command Into PowerShell.

Export-WindowsDriver –Online –Destination H:\MyBackup

Where H: Is your driver letter, and MyBackup Is your folder name. Your command should look similar to mine below. Then hit the Enter key on your keyboard.

Step Three:
All third-party device drivers, will now be exported and backed up to the directory that you've selected In the above step. This Is confirmed by the entries displayed In PowerShell.

Step Four:
Now navigate to your backup directory, In my case, the H Drive named Windows 10 Tips. As you can see, the MyBackup folder has been successfully created.

Last Step:
Upon opening the folder, the third-party drivers have been saved In their respective folders. I suggest saving yours to a secure location, such as a USB flash drive. You can now reinstall them at any point In time.

Final Thoughts:
You never know If and when your operating system will corrupt, to the point of having to perform a clean Installation of Windows. In such cases, the last thing you need, Is to be In search of device drivers on the Internet for hours on end. It's of the utmost Importance to backup your (third-party) drivers, and this tutorial, will certainly serve you well.