User's Guide

Backup Drivers
Restore Drivers
Update Drivers
Uninstall Drivers

Backup drivers

Before reinstalling Operating system, you should backup your drivers first. Driver Genius can help you to backup drivers easily and quickly!

1> Click the 'Backup Drivers' icon. The program will search for all installed drivers in system. You will see a list of installed drivers in the right window pane. To view details of a device driver, click the device in the list. The details will be displayed in the window.

Current used Drivers
These are drivers that are currently working on your computer. These will need to be backed up.
Original Windows Drivers
These drivers are included in the Windows installation CD and will be installed automatically during the Windows installation procedure. Commonly They needn't back up.
Disconnected Devices Drivers
These drivers belong to the devices that are not currently connected to your computer. If you want to use these devices in the future, their drivers must be installed on your PC. Therefore, you will need to back them up. This is especially important when installing drivers on a clean operating system.

By default all drivers will be backed up, but this will take more time and disk space, so you may wish to only back up Currently Used Drivers.

2> Select the drivers that you want to back up and click 'Next'.

3> Select the Backup type. Driver Genius can backup drivers to a ZIP file, a self-extractor, or an Auto-Installer. Click the drop down menu -> Select the Backup type. You will see 4 options, choose the one you want. If you want to install drivers on multiple computers with the same configuration, we strongly recommend you should backup the drivers to an auto-installer. You can use the Auto-Installer to install drivers on multiple new systems without Driver Genius main program at one time. This will greatly save you time.

4> Choose a location to save your driver backup files and click 'Next' to start the backup process.

Backup drivers in command line

Driver Genius allow you to backup your drivers in command line mode.
Usage: DriverGenius.exe [/B|?] [/T|A] [/D|Z|E|I] Backup location

First parameter - Specify the action
/? - Show help for usage
/b - Backup drivers
Second parameter - Specify which drivers you want to backup
/t - Third-Party drivers (Recommend)
/a - All drivers
Third parameter - Specify the backup type
/d - Default backup type, backs up selected drivers to the specified folder.
/z - Backs up selected drivers and make them to a ZIP file.
/e - Backs up selected drivers and make them to a self-extracting file.
/i - Backs up selected drivers and make them to an Auto-Installer.
Fourth parameter - Specify the backup location

Example:
C:\Driver-Soft\DriverGenius\DriverGenius.exe /B/T/I D:\DriversBackup.exe

Restore drivers

Driver Genius makes it easy for you to install drivers. With several mouse clicks, all drivers will be installed in one time without so many driver disk to install one by one.

1> Click 'Restore Drivers' icon. Select the source type. If your backup type is 'Default', select 'Folder' option. If your backup type is 'ZIP file', or 'self-extracting file', please select 'File' option.

2> Click 'Browse' button to choose the location for the backup file, then click 'Next'

3> Now your backup files and their details will display in the list. Select the driver you want to restore, click 'Next' to start restoring.

Find/Update Drivers

Driver Genius can recognize over 30,000 devices and offer their the newest version drivers. It can recognize devices even you haven't installed drivers for them before.

1> Click 'Update drivers' icon. The program will display all operating systems that it supports. Your current operating system is the default selection. You can also select target operating systems to update drivers.

2> Click 'Next' to automatically search and display suitable device drivers for the target system. When you click a driver in the list, its details (including driver name, version, release date, file size, supported operating systems, etc.) will be displayed in the window. If you do not want certain drivers to be updated anymore, please right click the driver and choose 'Hide Update'  to stop updating the driver.

Out of date drivers: These drivers are out of date, to get devices' best performance and compatibility. They need updating.
Up to date drivers: These drivers are up to date, they are the latest version drivers and needn't updating anymore.
Restore hidden drivers updates: If you want to get back the hidden drivers which you didn't want to update before, you can click 'Restore hidden drivers updates' to restore them to the normal state.

Select the drivers that you want to update and click 'Next' to continue.

3>You need choose a place to save all updated drivers

4> Your selections will be added to the drivers download manager list. Click the 'Browse' button to choose a place to save your drivers, then click 'Next' to download files.

After downloading procedure is complete, the driver will be marked with a green check. You can right-click the drivers and select the 'Open' sub-menu to install it.
Some driver packages contain multiple device drivers such as motherboard driver, it contains AGP controller driver, USB controller driver and IDE/RAID controller driver. So if Driver Genius Professional prompt that there are 8 devices drivers need updating, but only 4 drivers left in download list after choosing them all to update, that's normal.

Resume downloading
If downloading procedure failed because of network problem or stopping manually, you can choose 'Tools' menu --'Drivers Download Manager' to continue downloading. Drivers Download Manger adopt Multi Connections and resumable Downloading technology. It is faster and more steady. You can continue the unfinished download job even though the network connection fails without downloading over again.

Remove the installed drivers from update list
If you have installed the latest drivers for a device but this driver still appears in the update list, the reasons for this may be 1.) It is a motherboard driver package. 2.) The driver package contains multiple device drivers. Driver Genius determines whether the drivers should be updated by comparing the driver date and driver version in the current drivers database. However, in some cases, there is more than one file in the driver installation package released by the hardware manufacturers. For example, Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility and VIA Hyperion Pro Driver include AGP controller, IDE controller and USB controller and so on. In this situation, Driver Genius is unable to determine whether the drivers are installed correctly or not. You can solve this problem by doing the following: Right click the driver and choose 'Hide Update'  to stop updating the driver.

Uninstall Drivers

Driver Genius can help you to uninstall drivers easily.

1> Click 'Uninstall Drivers' icon, the program will search for all installed drivers in the system.

Loaded drivers
The drivers that have been loaded by the system and are working properly.
Stopped Drivers
Drivers that have been stopped by the system. Drivers are not automatically uninstalled just by removing the device. These leftover drivers will stay in your system and slow down the system performance.
Invalid Drivers
Drivers that have not been installed correctly. You should uninstall them first, then install the correct drivers.

2> Select the drivers you want to uninstall and click 'next' to uninstall them.

ATTENTION: Never uninstall IDE Controller drivers or System device drivers. That will cause your system crash.