How to add a driver to the DriverStore

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Written by Milad Aslaner, Premier Field Engineer. From Germany.

How do I actually add a driver to the DriverStore?

Hey everyone, this is Milad from Germany.

Today I wanted to quickly write about how you can add additional drivers to the DriverStore.

All drivers are stored in the so called DriverStore, which is located under %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\System32\DriverStore.

You can use the built-in command line tool pnputil to add or remove drivers.

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How does it work?

  1. Start an elevated command prompt (Start, type CMD, hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter)
  2. Adding a driver:
    • Pnputil.exe -a c:\LOCATION_OF_DRIVER\DRIVER_NAME.inf
      The location can be either local or remote
    • Pnputil.exe -a C:\LOCATION_OF_DRIVER\*.inf
      Copy all drivers from that folder
  3. Deleting a driver:
    • Pnputil.exe -d DRIVER_NAME_inf

 

You can find more information about pnputil at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff550428(v=vs.85).aspx.

Interested how it works under the hood? Or are you looking for assistance with your corporate master image? Contact your TAM and ask for a PFE!

Posted by Tristan Kington , MSPFE Editor, who notes that while not all PFEs are from Germany, it’s a really cool accent to have, ja?