Backup your Windows 10 drivers is important to get your computer back up and running. Thanks to the DISM command it is now possible.
di Antonio Lamorgese
Backup Windows 10 drivers is a very important operation that can restore your computer in a very short time in the event of a hard drive failure or formatting. Drivers are the programs that allow your operating system to interact with your computer hardware, such as your video card, sound card, printer, and other devices. Without them, your computer could not function properly.
Therefore having a copy of the drivers present on your computer will allow you to restore your PC exactly as it was before the malfunction. The beauty is that you can do it in total safety and in a very short time. Windows, allows you to make a backup of the drivers, using the command prompt and typing a very simple instruction.
How to backup windows 10 drivers
There are many ways to back up your computer’s drivers, but one of the easiest and most reliable ways is to use the DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) command. This tool is included in all versions of Windows and can be used to create a backup image of the drivers present on your operating system.
If you follow these simple steps, you too will be able to obtain a backup copy of the drivers that you can use, hopefully never, on your computer in the event of a breakdown or malfunction. Here is step-by-step what you need to do.
1. Open Command Prompt
The first step in backing up your computer’s drivers with the DISM command is to open the Command Prompt. To do this, click on the Start button, type “cmd” in the search bar and click on the “Command Prompt” item. If you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11, you can also right-click on the “Command Prompt” entry and click on “Run as administrator“. You should run the command prompt, as an administrator, to give the operating system the ability to run DISM with elevated privileges.
2. Run the DISM command
Once the Command Prompt opens, type this instruction and press Enter:
dism /online /export-driver /destination:"C:\driver_backup"
This command will back up all drivers on your computer and save them in a folder called ” driver_backup ” in your computer’s C:\ directory. You can change the destination, specifying a folder or drive of your choice, but always make sure there is enough free space to complete the entire backup procedure and save all files produced by DISM.
3. Wait for the operation to complete
The DISM command will take a few minutes to finish backing up your computer’s drivers. Once the operation is complete, you will see a confirmation message indicating that the drivers backup has been created successfully.
4. Save the driver backup to an external drive
Now that you’ve created a backup of your computer’s drivers, it’s important to save this backup to an external drive, such as a USB flash drive or external hard drive. In the event of a system crash or hard drive formatting, you can restore your computer’s drivers using this backup and always the same DISM command, but with different parameters. But first let’s secure our backup, perhaps by copying it to an external drive.
To save the driver backup to an external drive, connect the drive to your computer and copy the ” driver_backup ” folder from the C:\ directory to the directory on the external drive. Make sure you select the entire ” driver_backup ” folder and copy it entirely with all its contents.
5. Roll back your computer drivers
If your computer crashes or you need to format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system, you can restore your computer’s drivers using the backup you created with the DISM command. Now you will see how to restore your computer’s drivers by typing a simple command prompt instruction.
Read more: How to Automatically Login on Windows 10 and Windows 11
How to Restore Windows 10 Driver Backup
Having a backup of your computer’s drivers can save you from a lot of headaches in the event of a failure or malfunction of your operating system. If you’ve already backed up your computer’s drivers with the DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) command, you’re halfway there. In this paragraph I will show you how to restore your drivers backup using the same tool. Here too, if you proceed step-by-step it will be very simple to complete the operation.
1. Open Command Prompt
The first step in restoring your computer’s driver backup with the DISM command is to open the Command Prompt. To do this, click on the Start button, type ” cmd ” in the search bar and click on the “Command Prompt” result that appears. Also in this case it is convenient to open the “Command Prompt” always as Administrator. To give windows elevated privileges to safely perform all the procedure that the DISM command will implement. Seeing and considering that you have set aside your backup on an external drive, it’s time to take it back to have access to the backup.
2. Connect the external drive to your computer
As I have already anticipated, before proceeding to restore the drivers, make sure you have the external drive that contains the backup of the PC drivers and connect it to your computer. Your computer’s drivers will be restored directly from this external drive.
3. Run the DISM command
Once the Command Prompt opens and the external drive is connected, type the following command and press Enter:
dism /online /add-driver /driver:"D:\driver_backup" /recurse
This command will add the drivers to your computer from the ” driver_backup ” folder located on the external drive (in this example, the external drive has been assigned the letter D: by the operating system). The / recurse option , of DISM, guarantees that all subdirectories contained in the ” driver_backup ” folder will be added and considered by the restore procedure.
4. Wait for the operation to complete
The DISM command will take a few minutes to finish restoring your computer’s drivers. Once the operation is complete, you will see a confirmation message stating that the drivers have been added successfully.
5. Restart your computer
After restoring your computer’s drivers with the DISM command, you will need to restart your computer to complete the process. After restarting, your computer should work fine as before.
Read more: How to fix Windows 10 in 5 different ways