Does a new install of Windows include all drivers for any computer?

rodion15 · 07 Oct 2021

I have these two doubts about Windows Updates for Windows 10:
Is it A or B?
1. When you install the latest version of Windows 10:
A: it includes all drivers for all possible computers
B: it just includes drivers currently detected on your computer
2. The drivers that are present after a new install of the latest Windows:
A: Are included in the installer Media USB image that you use to install Windows.
B: Are downloaded as needed if detected in the computer.

Any help much appreciated

tonez · 07 Oct 2021

1 a 2 b

Ghot · 07 Oct 2021

@rodion15 ...as @tonez stated...

Windows 10 comes with all the drivers for 99% of the computers out there.
In some rare cases, it will need to go online and get a driver. Those usually come direct from Microsoft.

To cover all bases... you should probably download the Ethernet or wireless driver... just in case.
Once you have the internet... Microsoft will take care of the rest.

Try3 · 07 Oct 2021

rodion15 said:

Is it A or B?

Neither & both.

1C Many drivers for many computers
2C Many drivers will have come from the installation media, some are downloaded when particular hardware is detected [generally the first time WU runs afterwards].

What are you trying to achieve?

Denis

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Bree · 07 Oct 2021

rodion15 said:

I have these two doubts about Windows Updates for Windows 10....

I have recently taken a system image of an old legacy bios laptop with an Intel cpu and restored it to a new one with a UEFI bios and an AMD processor. Almost all other hardware was different too, the Ethernet, WiFi, GPU and Touchpad, for example.

On first boot up after transferring it said 'loading drivers' with a % count, at 100% it restarted and went to the destop. All devices were working properly with appropriate drivers installed. Windows Update did later update one or two of them, but the drivers included by Microsoft in Windows 10 were sufficient to get a fully working system without the need to go online.

MisterEd · 08 Oct 2021

My experience has shown that sometimes Windows will install a basic driver. The hardware will usually perform much better if the manufacturer specific driver is later installed. Sometimes the Windows installation will supply a manufacturer specific driver but it will not be the latest one. The computer user will then have to find and install a newer drivers if that is wanted.

Windows update seems to be geared toward having driver updates for Intel hardware. People with AMD and Nvidia hardware usually have to find and update the drivers themselves.

For my laptop with AMD graphics, the Radeon software tells me when there is an update. The same goes for my desktops with Nvidia graphics. Nvidia software checks for updates and tells me when one is available. None of these computers are provided graphic driver updates via Windows update.

I just powered up a computer that I updated to Windows 10 1909 back in 2019. When I ran Windows update last week it updated itself to Windows 10 20H2. Since the computer is 12 years old that may be the last version of Windows 10 it receives. The motherboard has an AMD CPU, Nvidia chipset, and Nvidia graphics card. Device manager showed that very old drivers were installed for both the chipset and graphics card. In this case the update to Windows 10 did not update these drivers. I had to find and install better drivers myself.

Research showed that these are the newest drivers I found for this computer:

Motherboard: ASUS M4N82 Deluxe
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 980a
Nvidia nForce driver
Version: 15.56 WHQL
Release Date: May 2, 2011
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit

Note the motherboard manufacturer ASUS had very old drivers. I had to go to the chipset manufacturer Nvidia to get a much better driver.

Graphics card: NVIDIA GTS 250
Nvidia GeForce driver
Version: 342.01 WHQL
Release Date: December 14, 2016
Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit

Megahertz · 08 Oct 2021

The win 10 installation drive has 7 disk "images", one for each type (Home, Pro, education etc)
On the first stage of a clean install you see "copying files". In fact it is expanding an image on the target drive. After "copying files" it reboots and the installation drive isn't needed any more. All needed files are now on the target drive.
On the second stage it begins the installation choosing appropriate files to meet the hardware.
On the third stage it creates the User profile.

So the answer to your questions are that all drivers are on the target drive but not all are effective.

rodion15 · 09 Oct 2021

MisterEd said:

My experience has shown that sometimes Windows will install a basic driver...

That’s interesting, I always doubt “should I manually install manufacturer drivers from their websites?”, so with AMD, Nvidia that seems to be the case, note taken. Great answer, Thanks!

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Megahertz said:

The win 10 installation drive has 7 disk "images", one for each type (Home, Pro, education etc)...

Am I right to say that all drivers in the installation media are transferred to the Driverstore folder?

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Bree said:

I have recently taken a system image of an old legacy bios laptop with an Intel cpu

Great test, I guess what the restore to the new PC did is use all needed drivers in the driverstore folder and install them in the system32/Drivers folder, if I’m right. Interesting that you did it offline, which seems to confirm how this works.

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Try3 said:

What are you trying to achieve?

I'm just an IT student, thank you.

Bree · 09 Oct 2021

rodion15 said:

What are you trying to achieve?

I'm just an IT student, thank you.

Ah, you're trying to achieve knowledge. Well you've come to the right place then.

Megahertz · 09 Oct 2021

rodion15 said:

Am I right to say that all drivers in the installation media are transferred to the Driverstore folder?

A hardware to work properly needs more than a driver.
This is what I SUPPOSE (my observation along the years) to be the process. If I'm wrong, please someone correct me.

- A new hardware is found. Every hardware has an ID. You can see the Hardware ID by right clicking a device on device manager - Properties - Details tab- Hardware ID

Does a new install of Windows include all drivers for any computer?-harwareid.jpg

- If you look at Properties - Details tab - inf name you find the information file of the drive. The Inf files are on E:\Windows\INF
- The Inf file is a script to install the needed files, like *.sys, *.bin, *. cat etc
Once installed, the effective working drivers are stored on C:\Windows\System32\drivers.
The source of all drivers are stored on C:\Windows\winsxs