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DriverGrabber 2.0 - One Click Driver Backup!!

now works in winpe!!!

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#1 Siginet

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 05:24 AM

OK... you asked for it.... so here it is!!!
DriverGrabber 2.0 Beta

This is a One Click Driver Backup Solution.
Very simple to use...
Run the "DriverGrabber 2.0.exe" and watch it Grab all of the drivers from your system and place them into a "Drivers" folder!
It now even grabs drivers that are no longer in use... For instance... a Printer Driver that is no longer physically connected to your system while you perform a backup.
Also... you can now use DriverGrabber on a Windows PE disk like LiveXP! It auto detects if it is being executed in a PE environment... it will attempt to auto detect the Windows Drive you wish to backup as well.

Download:
http://integrator.si...p?addons&id=242



Beta 5:
Fixed - A few bugs in the code causing DriverGrabber to fail finding the correct path to grab some driver files.
Changed - DriverSearch is now set to Off by default. If anyone has issues with backups I suggest they try to turn DriveSearch on and then post their log on the forum so I can make sure their drivers are properly backed up in a future release of DriverGrabber. We are still in Beta... and I'd like to have DriverGrabber functioning as well as I can without the need for DriveSearch.


Please test this version of DriverGrabber out and report back any issues. When reporting issues please try to post your DriverGrabber.log file to help narrow down a problem. If you get a "Not Found!" error on a specific file that can not be grabbed... please run a search on your entire system to verify the file even exists anywhere on your computer.
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#2 TheHive

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 08:57 AM

Found my display Nvidia Drivers.
Didnt back up the Network Card Drivers
Found my modem drivers.
Found Virtual Drivers.


Thanks!

#3 amalux

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 01:52 PM

Didn't get my NIC on both machines tested because they fall under M$ category. There needs to be a way to configure this via cli or at least ini, tried Microsoft=Keep and Grab ;) both failed. Is there documentation on this?

The best would be a way to scan all drivers but only keep certain ones by name or class :go_fish:

Thank you for sharing and listening.

:cheers:

#4 Siginet

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 04:41 PM

Can I ask why you would need to backup those drivers? If they are Microsoft Drivers then they are built into the system I would suppose. Especially if they are not backedup when you edit the DriverGrabber.ini. This means they were built in drivers. It would be a waste to back them up wouldn't they? Unless they are non-built in LAN drivers from Microsoft Update.

When DriverGrabber scans for drivers it only scans to grab OEM*.inf drivers... which are non-built in drivers. I suppose it would be smart for DriverGrabber to ignore skipping LAN / WLAN drivers from Microsoft which are from an OEM*.inf file. Since I suppose there is a possibility that they were from Microsoft update and not built in. I'll look into doing that in the next release.

But if they are not from an OEM*.inf file you should not need them backed up. ;)

#5 amalux

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 05:54 PM

Hi Siginet,

I need to backup those drivers for import to PE. I currently use Smart Driver Backup for this which works fine except it doesn't allow me to select which drivers to backup by name or class, only ALL or Non-M$. I can backup all and use scripts to discard the ones I don't need but it would be nice to choose which drivers to backup in the first place.

I'm including a couple inf's as examples of drivers, listed as M$ that are not natively supported in PE. If this was not (one of) the intended uses for your program than just disregard my posts and thanks again for sharing ;)

Attached File  msinf.zip   4.08KB   3 downloads

#6 Siginet

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 06:29 PM

Hmmm... I'm not sure what to look for to differentiate wether or not a driver is supported in a PE environment.

As far as I can tell this LAN driver is built into the operating system. So DriverGrabber would not make any attempt to back it up. That is why even if you check the DriverGrabber.log file you would not even see it as a Skipped Driver.

In the next release I will work on adding an option into the DriverGrabber.ini file that would allow it to back up built in drivers as well. I may even allow create a simple gui for allowing you to select which drivers you wish to backup. Not sure if the gui would make it into the next release though. But I am leaning toward having the gui an optional feature. I like that DriverGrabber is a simple One Click Driver Backup utility which backs up all the necissary drivers only.

It would be nice if there is some way that I can tell the difference between a built in PE driver and one that needs to be backed up. Then I could build in an option in the DriverGrabber.ini file for One Click PE Drivers backup. ;) But for that I would need help from the users who have knowledge in that area.

#7 amalux

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Posted 07 June 2012 - 07:35 PM

It would be nice if there is some way that I can tell the difference between a built in PE driver and one that needs to be backed up. Then I could build in an option in the DriverGrabber.ini file for One Click PE Drivers backup. ;)

Yes, this is the missing piece of the puzzle.

The closest I've come is scanning for certain driver CLASS e.g. Net, Media, Display, Processor etc. but again, I'm stuck with backing up ALL drivers first, then saving the ones I want for import. This takes time and space that could be saved by backing up only those classes to begin with. Is something like this possible, backing up (all) drivers by class?

I'm sure I can't tell you anything you don't already know but I'm certainly willing to test or help in any way I can :)

#8 Siginet

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Posted 08 June 2012 - 02:59 AM

I could allow users to backup by class. It is something I could also allow people to edit in the DriverGrabber.ini. If anyone has ideas on how we can make DriverGrabber auto backup needed PE Drivers I am all for it.

#9 amalux

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Posted 08 June 2012 - 03:40 AM

Fantastic!

Looking forward to hearing others input :thumbsup:

#10 DarkPhoeniX

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Posted 08 June 2012 - 06:05 AM

Im using This for my driver backups....look into how it works and try to improve it

#11 Siginet

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Posted 08 June 2012 - 09:00 AM

I'm not one to want to re-invent the wheel. So I don't want to copy someone elses work. ;) I don't feel like I need to find out how someone elses program works. I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track as it is.

I'd rather have some honest feedback from fellow users and try to implement requested features that would benefit DriverGrabber. I don't want to change DriverGrabber to function just like another program.

My issue with other Driver Backup programs has always been that they have problems successfully backing up all of the needed drivers files. I wrote the old version of DriverGrabber way back in 2007. To this day it has been getting hundreds of downloads a week at FileForum. That's the reason I have decided to update it and begin to finish implementing the features that I originally intended to implement.

The old version of DriverGrabber used devcon in it. But this new version is completely independent and reads the registry and inf files in windows to successfully backup your drivers. Which allowed me to make it work in a PE environment as well.

As of now DriverGrabber 2.0 is in Beta... so it is bound to have small glitches. But so far it seems pretty solid backing up most drivers. I don;'t think it is far off from being flawless.

So I need the help from everyone. If you run it on your system... please post your DriverGrabber.log file so that I can take a look at it and make sure it is grabbing all of the driver files as intended. Without help... it will be difficult for DriverGrabber to become flawless. ;)

Thanks!

#12 Siginet

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Posted 11 June 2012 - 06:34 AM

Updated! Beta 2 is now online. :)

#13 Atari800XL

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Posted 11 June 2012 - 10:52 AM

Looks like a fantastic tool! I did a few quick tests, and it looks very promising. I'll do some more testing this week (I've got several PC's to test it on, including some with rather exotic peripherals and drivers). If everything works as nice as the first test, you have a winner on your hands!!!

#14 Siginet

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Posted 11 June 2012 - 11:07 AM

Thanks! I'm looking forward to your tests! I need it widely tested across all NT5 / NT6 platforms. ;)

#15 Siginet

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Posted 11 June 2012 - 05:49 PM

Beta 3 is online:

Beta 3:
Fixed - Issue creating folder for DriverNames with characters that are not usable in a directory name. Like /* and so on. Now invalid characters are deleted.

#16 Atari800XL

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Posted 11 June 2012 - 06:03 PM

What a coincidence!!! I was just about to post a question about why only 4 of 6 drivers were saved on a HP nc6320. Your reply of 5 minutes ago explained it: The name of the driver was "Intel® ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller"
I tried your latest beta, and it saved all 6! Only *then* did I see the backslash in the driver name!
Beta 3 saved it correctly to "Intel® ICH7MMDH SATA AHCI Controller"

Thanks! I'll run more tests later...

#17 Siginet

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Posted 12 June 2012 - 03:47 AM

Thanks @Atari!
In Beta 4 I am gonna change invalid characters into underscores. I also have fixed a couple other minor bugs in Beta 4 as well.
Also... to help speed up the Grabbing process I am adding a feature that will make DriverGrabber remember the previous directory where it finds a driver file... then it will first look in that same directory for the next driver file. Since a lot of drivers are located in the same directory it should speed up finding driver files. Especially on drivers that DriverGrabber is having a hard time finding files.

#18 TheHive

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Posted 12 June 2012 - 08:10 AM

This time it found and backed up the Network card and SCSIAdapter.

#19 Atari800XL

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Posted 12 June 2012 - 02:47 PM

OK, I'm busy testing DriverGrabber on an old Sony Vaio (XP). I'm attaching every weird peripheral I own, installing the drivers, then running DriverGrabber to backup the drivers. After this, I'm reinstalling the laptop with a clean XPSP3 (ghosting it to XPClean.gho). After that, I will test if all the drivers backed up by DriverGrabber work correctly.

First thing I'm running into: I have some old Inexq HU001r LAN-USB adapters lying around, they have come in handy in the past, and I'm sure there will be some kind of "emergency" in the future when I can use them. So that's another one I attached to the Vaio. I installed the drivers (NETHU001.INF, NETHU001.SYS and NETHU001.CAT), only to notice the .CAT is a dummy file 2 bytes in size. Very strange, because I actually had an official CD lying around with the driver on it!
From the DriverGrabber log I see that under [Skipped Drivers] it lists the Inexq adapter, with "No Cat File Found" (as expected).

Now should we just forget about drivers like this one? Or should DriverGrabber have an option to save drivers like this one anyway? (I really don't know if drivers with dummy CAT files like these are common.....)
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#20 Siginet

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Posted 12 June 2012 - 04:26 PM

In the next Beta I will have an option in the DriverGrabber.ini to allow No Cat backups. Which I will have turned on by default. I guess there is some drivers without cats. Another user has a Zebra printer that has no cat. So it seems to me that we will need to have no cat backups available.

Let me know how all of your tests go. ;) If you have any troublesome drivers... please post your DriverGrabber.log file and any inf files the drivers pertain to. Also if you come across drivers that need to use the DriveSearch feature a lot please post those as well. I want to limit the need for DriveSearch as much as possible. ;)

BTW in the upcoming beta... I have added the ability to set the backup location in the DriverGrabber.ini. You will also be able to use specific Macros in the path. Like if @ComputerName is used in the path DriverGrabber will replace it with the computer name of the live system... or the computer name of the Offline system that is being backed up. @HomeDrive will be converted to the path to the System Home Drive of the system being backed up. @Browse will force DriverGrabber to pop up a browse window to allow the user to ask for a destination.

So if this is in the DriverGrabber.ini:

[Options]
Destination=@BrowseDrivers@ComputerName

DriverGrabber will ask for your location... then it will backup to your [Destination]Drivers[ComputerName]


I also will code into DriverGrabber to log in the DriverGrabber.log if it had to use DriveSearch on any files it found.

#21 Atari800XL

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Posted 13 June 2012 - 10:46 AM

Will the DriverGrabber interface stay as it is, or are you going to use an interactive dialog with options? Like "Which drivers to backup", maybe even a list of drivers from which the user can pick and choose? In the tests I ran, I can see that being useful, I could eg. select "No Cat", "List built-in drivers", etc.
But if you choose to keep it as it is, I'm not complaining...

#22 Siginet

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Posted 13 June 2012 - 03:40 PM

I do plan to create an option in the DriverGrabber.ini to allow the program to open in a gui to allow options to change all settings and select specific drivers. But I have not had a chance to implement one yet.

#23 Atari800XL

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Posted 13 June 2012 - 04:49 PM

Take your time!

#24 Siginet

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Posted 14 June 2012 - 05:13 AM

Beta 4 online!

#25 Atari800XL

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Posted 14 June 2012 - 03:27 PM

OK, to make testing a little easier, I configured a laptop with 3 primary partitions: W7, XP, XP. I select the OS with a Grub menu. When one is selected, the others are made invisible. Until now, all my testing has been done with XP:
XP from the 3rd partition had its drivers added in the "normal" manner, then DriverGrabber is used to backup the drivers.
XP from the 2nd partition is a "clean" XPSP3, that I can constantly make "clean" again by restoring a Ghost backup.

I tested beta 4 for the "NoCat" option: I installed the LAN-to-USB adapter in "full XP" that had a dummy .cat file of only 2 bytes. Then I ran DriverGrabber, it made a clean backup. It didn't create a dummy .cat file, so I thought there might be trouble ahead. I rebooted to the "clean XP" (no wlan or network cable attached), then inserted the LAN-USB adapter. The system asked for a driver, I pointed to the driver backed up by DriverGrabber beta 4. Everything worked fine! I attached a network cable and had a perfect connection.

So all this testing for just one purpose: If I ever come across an XP system with boot problems, I can use WinPE_SE, run DriverGrabber, and backup even drivers without .cat files. Great work, Siginet!!!
:clap:




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