Are drivers used by Windows RE different to drivers used after boot?

I’ve really welcome any clarification to be used when troubleshooting driver issues in Windows 10.

My idea is that the drivers used by Windows during boot are different to the ones used by Windows after you sign in and use the machine. The drivers during boot are loaded from the BIOS firmware (or maybe from the startup drive) and are more simple drivers to be used only during boot (such as drivers for the mouse, keyboard, video-card, etc), and are replaced by proper windows drivers loaded from the startup drive later during booting.

If that’s correct, then, what drivers are used by Windows RE?

My purpose is to troubleshoot driver issues such as a jittery trackpad: if it doesn't happen in WinRE, and I can confirm that the trackpad drivers used by WinRE are different, then I'd suspect the proper Windows driver is faulty.

rodion,

As Joe etc said, DriverQuery can be used to answer your question.

I suggest this syntax with DriverQuery both when used within Windows and in WinRE/WinPE, such as the Windows InstallationUSB.
To investigate drivers in the recovery environment, I think you'll find it useful to get both WinRE/WinPE & normal Windows results so you can compare them.
- I've used D:\Desktop for the output folder but you should change that to a folder of your own in both cases [and your folder paths in both cases will be different].
- You'll probably have to work through several Dir commands to find the drive you want for your output file because WinPE/WinRE drive letter assignments are not always the normal ones. Despite appearances, it will not be X:\ because that is a virtual drive not a real one.
- You can use whatever filename you want for the output csv file

Code:

Driverquery.exe /fo csv /v  >"D:\Desktop\DriverQuery-Results.csv"

When you are back in Windows after both tests, open your results in Excel and save them as .xlsx so you can apply helpful formatting [csv files do not retain any formatting changes you make in Excel, they must be saved as .xlsx for this]. I suggest starting off with:-
1 SaveAs .xlsx
2 Select cell A2, View tab, Freeze panes, Freeze top row
3 Select all the headers in row 1, Home tab, Sort & filter {at the right-hand end}, Filter
4 In column F, "State", click on the down arrow [the filter arrow], clear the Stopped checkbox i.e. just select the Running checkbox, OK.
5 For column N, "Path", hover your cursor over the columns N-O divider & double-click to autofit the column to its contents [or user Home tab, Format, Autofit column width].

Browse your results, compare them with each other.
- You'll see references to the X:\ drive. That is the drive letter of the virtual drive which the temporary WinPE/WinPE runs from.
- In my latest comparison, I had 98 running drivers in Windows and 150 running drivers in WinPE [booting from my Windows installation USB]. You'd have thought it would be fewer in WinPE [what I mean is, I thought …].


DriverQuery is the only driver lister I know that runs correctly in WinPE.
When I'm in Windows and change a driver I backup my drivers
Backup and Restore Device Drivers - TenForumsTutorials
and I run DriverQuery & six other utilities that produce slightly different outputs.
- If you are interested then I'll explain what I run.
- I have only had to use these driver results files once in anger [when it became apparent after reinstalling Windows 10 that a particular computer maker had supplied the wrong replacement hardware drivers***]. It was only by using all of my driver results files & stepping between them that I was able to piece together the identity of the driver I wanted from my pre-reinstall backup in order to fix my touchscreen & a couple of other bits***.
- I had originally rather vaguely intended to decide on the single driver results file that I would keep making at every driver backup but that angry experience taught me that no single driver results file contains everything needed to solve problems. They add up to less than 1MB between them so I am not particularly bothered.
- I run my driver backup my driver results files creation with a batch file so I don't really care that I might not need all those driver results files, I just start the batch file then get on with something else.
- You are welcome to see my batch file if you would seriously consider using it. I would have to work through checking/adding explanatory comments so you could follow it better and that will take a bit of time.


All the best,
Denis

*** I've since provided those drivers for several other owners in the maker's forum because the makers have proved incapable of fixing their hardware manifest so they continue to supply the wrong drivers in their downloads. Bunch of tossers.

In general, winpe only needs generic drivers adequate to boot pc and install OS.

However if you run portable apps in winpe mode, you may need to inject additional drivers into boot.wim.

I always inject nvme irst drivers into boot.wim, but I inject quite a few drivers into install.wim. The latter is not essential inost cases but it prevents having to manual update drivers from device manager.