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Recovery Media - Where Does It Get Drivers?

Anonymous
2019-11-30T22:18:28+00:00

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)

Version: 1903, OS Build: 10.0.18362

UEFI BIOS

Question about Recovery Media - Where Does It Get Drivers?

Are the drivers the active current drivers, original Windows distribution drivers, wherever?

Drivers are constantly being updated. Your laptop manufacturer posts new driver updates. Windows 10 updater has new driver updates. Intel has new CPU driver updates.

When you create Windows 10 Recovery media (Control panel | Recovery) which drivers does it use?

Are the drivers the most recently installed ones?

Or does Windows use drivers from the original Windows installation (i.e. old drivers)?

If Windows uses the most recently installed drivers, that would imply one should make a new Recovery media whenever any driver updates occur whether manually, or via Windows 10 updater?

Does checking or unchecking "Back up system files to the recovery drive" effect which drivers are used?

Thank you in advance.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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Igor Leyko 111K Reputation points Independent Advisor
2019-11-30T22:38:54+00:00

Hi Petrula,

Recovery media contains drivers from Windows distributive.

it cannot contain all third-party drivers or drivers from Windows update due to size limitation (512MB) of this media.

This media is not intended to provide full functionality of every and all device. The purpose of this media is to provide base functions so user could made system restore from previously crated backup.

So there is no need to include most new drivers, stable basic drivers are better in this case.

Backing up system files just allow to get a bootable system without using full backup for restoration.

And one may to use bootable media with latest Windows version created with Media Creation tool instead usual recovery media.

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-12-03T09:13:55+00:00

    You do have to check "Back up system files to the recovery drive", or it won't copy any drivers at all. And in the following article...

    https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4200-create-recovery-drive-windows-10-a.html

    How to Create a Bootable USB Recovery Drive in Windows 10

    ...it says the following will be copied to the drive...

    "

    • Windows Component Store
    • Installed drivers
    • Backup of preinstalled Windows apps
    • Provisioning packages containing preinstalled customizations (under C:\Recovery\Customizations)
    • Push-button Reset configuration XML and scripts (under C:\Recovery\OEM)

    "

    So - the drivers that were installed at the time you created the drive are the ones you get back, sounds like. (But I never did a recovery so can't swear to it myself.) It is otherwise a clean install (of the version of Windows you had when you made the drive) - no files you created or apps you yourself installed are included. However, once recovered, Windows will resume doing what you said & begin to update the drivers again. And those drivers likely were provided to Windows by the computer & component manufacturers in the first place.

    You won't have the bottom 2 items in that list unless the computer is OEM (came with Windows installed by the computer manufacturer); also, you must never have done a clean install which would wipe them out. In this case, you get back the apps the manufacturer had included - but not any files you made with them & not any updates you did to them. That makes this a better option than a clean install for those who want to retain the computer manufacturer's add-ons.

    I do make a Recovery drive (with the system files) after each new Windows version (feature update) comes in & works well, but I don't update it for driver changes. It's good to have in case of emergency, even though I've done a clean install & might as well (& probably would) just do another one of those.

    But actually my first choice to recover in an emergency would be to restore my Windows system image backup. That includes all apps, user files & settings that were in effect at the time it was made. It's a perfect copy of all the partitions required to run Windows: EFI, MSR, Windows (C:), & Recovery. I make one after each new OS Build (quality update) comes in & works well, & I keep the last 3. You need to be in a Recovery Environment to restore a Windows system image backup - & booting to a Recovery drive is one way to get there.

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