Identifying Driver association with Control Panel

[dw85745]

Hope I'm in the right forum. Admin, if not please move.

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My ultimate objective is to identify loaded but unneeded drivers.

In this effort, I can use either driverquery or regedit to get a list of drivers on my system.

Now I would like to:

1) Identify which section of Control Panel controls which driver,
without having to manually open each section of Control Panel and track down the driver name.

Question:

Is there a program or easy way to identify which section of Control Panel handles which driver?

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2) The registry will tell me whether the driver is handled by the Kernel (for example).
However, my guess is M$ loads a lot of unneeded drivers -- SCSI Miniport for example where no SCSI exists.

Question:
How do I easily determine whether the Kernel is loading drivers Not necessary by my machine?

Thanks
David

 

[ICIT2LOL]

DW I don't know if this will be of any help to you but it will show you what is starting up
windows 7 - How to find drivers that are loading on startup? - Super User the ref or use the site I used Autoruns for Windows

Download and run as in my pic

 

[Alejandro85]

You can use Process Hacker to identify all the kernel drivers registered in the system and those that are set to load at startup or on-demand. In its services tab it can show, in addition to normal user-mode services, the drivers loaded, and you can change them to autostart or not, or start/stop them as you like.
That of course don't tells anything about if each one is actually used or not.

I just advice caution with messing with drivers. Unless you know what you're doing, take caution when configuring system drivers manually, as it's possible to break something, maybe rendering some device or function useless or cause rare BSODs. A restore point before changing anything is a good thing to have handy.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Agree with Alejdro be careful in doing anything with drivers or the registry as a matter of routine I always run an image weekly and a back up of the registry after a clean install and before "tweaking" it.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4230-registry-backup-restore.html

 

[lehnerus2000]

I just advice caution with messing with drivers. Unless you know what you're doing, take caution when configuring system drivers manually, as it's possible to break something, maybe rendering some device or function useless or cause rare BSODs. A restore point before changing anything is a good thing to have handy.

I think that a backup HDD/SSD image would be better.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I just advice caution with messing with drivers. Unless you know what you're doing, take caution when configuring system drivers manually, as it's possible to break something, maybe rendering some device or function useless or cause rare BSODs. A restore point before changing anything is a good thing to have handy.

I think that a backup HDD/SSD image would be better.

Yep I agree absolutely - that's what I do as I posted a weekly image with Macrium http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html one could also use this one too
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

 

[dw85745]

Thanks for all responses.

However, I don't feel the question - especially identifying Control Panel driver association--. were answered, so this thread remains open.

I agree AutoRuns gives a good driver list and the ability to tweak (turn on/off).
In fact that is what I normally used to tweak drivers. However Autoruns settings reflect my (our) tweaks NOT
what Windows requires. For example, if the SCSI Miniport drivers is turned on (by default) and during WIndows load
there are no SCSI drivers, Windows should (will) just ignore it. Tweaking the SCSI Miniport off only speeds up WIndows loading (which is a good thing), BUT does not help one identify whether you have something on your system that needs the SCSI Miniport driver.

Re backups. I agree.

Alejandro85:
Not familiar with "Process Hacker" (or at least by that name) will check it out.

 

[Alejandro85]

Control panel doesn't shows the driver list anywhere, not in full at least, hence my suggestion of Process
Hacker (it doesn't has any other name, BTW )
What screen are you looking at in control panel?

 

[dw85745]

Alejandro85:

If you go into Control Panel and drill down, you will find the driver name under properties.

For example:

CP-Network and File Sharing - Change Adapter Settings - Right Click Object - Choose Properties - Select Command Configure - Select Driver Tab

Alternately going through CP - Device Manager will get you the Driver.

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Re: "Process Hacker" found it on SourceForge. Thought you might have been referring to "Process Explorer"