ConfigMgr Frontline

Have you ever had problems with a "bad" driver? You get occassional BSODs and maybe even lost some work? The reason could be that you have unsigned/unverified drivers. Luckily, there is a built-in tool for verifying drivers! And, unlike many things Microsoft, it is actually named intuitively! VERIFIER! So, how do we use it? Well, that is the easy part. You launch it, click "yes" to elevate it, click Next - Next and it will tell you if you have any unsigned drivers. It is that easy! Once you indentify the unsigned driver(s), you only need to go visit the device manufacturer website and download the latest, signed drivers. Another reason a driver may crash (or cause a BSOD) is because it was not made for the version of Windows you are on. Luckily, verifier can also help with that! Launch verifier, click Next, Next and hopefully you'll get a message that no unsigned drivers were found. If so, then the next thing you'll want to do is scan for ...

If you go here on a Windows box: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository You will see a ton of folders…each folder corresponds to a driver. Inside each folder is the inf file and any other required files for the driver. You can sort them by date to see which drivers were just installed. Windows saves all drivers you add here. Find the folder that contains the driver you need and copy that folder to your driver repository… name it something descriptive and include it in your driver package. Windows will find and use that driver during its plug n play search. You can effectively decrease your driver packages size by 90%!