Sysprep install, driver backup?

[Darkstrike]

Hi all,

Getting a new motherboard, RAM and CPU tonight and I'm going to use Sysprep to prepare my current hard drive / Windows install to install my hard drive in that system (My Windows install is a pain to reinstall as I have everything set up just the way I like it and I have some software installed that I don't have the media to reinstall / have lost the license keys).

I've done Sysprep before with great success, but I was curious, is there a way I could just copy a Windows driver folder and then paste it back after the swap (I know Sysprep wipes system drivers) so that I don't have to go find all my drivers over again and reinstall them (other than the motherb's chipset, etc. drivers...?)

Cheers and thanks!

 

[D3LL]

I believe the drivers would need to be executable files as this also makes changes to the registry etc...

 

[Darkstrike]

I was thinking about it like this - if I use Sysprep, the software that deals with certain hardware (my printer, scanner, etc), would still be installed, so by copying the drivers folder, the second I plug the devices in, wouldn't Windows find the driver in the folder and then install it?

That being said, I guess SysPrep wipes hardware-related registry entries as well, so...maybe I am wrong...

 

[D3LL]

Generally speaking Windows 7 is pretty good with plug and play. Should the drivers be out of date after reinstalling it automatically adds these to the Windows Update lists and updates them for you. To be honest you should just plug everything in and it will work.