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Copying drivers across machines
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:35 am
by tony1695
So, pretty self-explanatory.
Long story short, my mouse does not work on my desktop. Something happened with the drivers, not sure what, but it does work on my laptop. How do I copy the drivers from the laptop over to the desktop?
Re: Copying drivers across machines
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:47 am
by Bellhead
If you can install the drivers from the original source, such as from a disk or the product website, I'd recommend it. Also, check the device manager; maybe it's just disabled or something stupid like that.
Though I will say, whenever my father needed to do that, he went to a folder named "drivers" in the root of C:\. I'm not sure if that's a Windows-made folder or not, but you might find something there.
Re: Copying drivers across machines
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:44 pm
by RevZ
If it's the same exact type of Windows (for instance an edition of Windows 7, both 64-bit or both 32-bit) you can share the Windows driver store folder (%windir%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository) as a public folder and then point your dysfunctional PC at the share on the other PC. This will most likely pick up a required driver from that store on the other PC and install it on this one.
Be warned though: Devices like these are most usually universal devices which have at least SOME functionality when no driver is present. An underlying issue with your Windows installation may be apparent!
Make sure Windows Update is enabled and its service functional in services.msc, because if that doesn't work it most likely will never attempt to install a driver from the WU driver store either.