Reclaim Disk Space: Clean Old Windows Drivers with Driver Store Explorer (RAPR)

Windows systems accumulate obsolete device drivers, causing bloat. Driver Store Explorer (RAPR) for Windows 10/11 helps identify and safely remove unnecessary, outdated drivers from the driver store, freeing significant disk space and improving performance.

The Growing Problem of Windows Driver Bloat

Several gadgets each require a different driver instance. Turns out the P3 Ultra has two sets of Bluetooth USB devices, so two chauffeurs remain behind although I attempted to erase one of those. When you think about that typical graphics adapters can surpass 1GB in size, and common gadgets vary from 2MB to 35MB, it’s easy to understand just how dropping unnecessary entrances liberates real room.

There’s one point regarding RAPR worth identifying: if a system consists of several duplicates of the very same current chauffeur, the Select (Old Drivers) button will not eliminate them immediately. I typically do so one area at a time, leaving the upper instance of the exact same motorist behind.

This is actually fairly an interesting procedure and entails a lot of behind the curtain activity in Windows. For this discussion, I’ll adhere to so-called Plug and Play (PnP) gadgets. These are purpose-built to reveal themselves to Windows so that it can assist in finding a device driver to make use of, if not always the most up to date and greatest one. My details comes thanks to the terrific Microsoft Press book Windows Internals (7th edition in 2 volumes, since this writing).

Older printer vehicle drivers may stubbornly resist removal, even in RAPR, and even using its pressure removal capabilities. The key is to remove the printer from what’s visible (or linked to) a computer prior to tinkering drivers. You can more conveniently eliminate old ones. New ones will nearly constantly mount themselves when you hook up to or establish a connection with the printers whose motorists you want to upgrade. Consider this a recommendation.

With time on Windows systems, it’s unavoidable that old device vehicle drivers get supplanted by brand-new ones. Even on systems where vehicle drivers aren’t carefully maintained, Windows Update will normally update a minimum of a loads drivers yearly.

Those who seek vehicle driver money extra vigorously might additionally utilize devices like the Intel Chauffeur & Support Assistant (DSA), the NVIDIA Application (which checks Nvidia graphics, audio, and 3D vehicle drivers), or basic vehicle driver administration tools such as ioBit’s Motorist Booster or the SourceForge Snappy Motorist Installer project to inspect and update motorists on Windows 10 or 11 PCs. Intel and Nvidia offerings concentrate on devices they make, whereas general-purpose motorist update devices inspect all of them and aim you at newer ones, with differing levels helpful and assistance in obtaining them mounted.

Introducing Driver Store Explorer (RAPR)

This driver-handling process as documented says absolutely nothing regarding tidying up older chauffeurs present in the Windows driver store (in %SystemRoot% System32DriverStoreFileRepository). This write-up focuses on checking out the contents of that chauffeur store and getting rid of older and/or out-of-date items to decrease its on-disk footprint.

Ed Tittel has actually been operating in and around IT for over thirty years. He’s been functioning with and writing regarding Windows given that the very early 1980s, he has been a Windows Insider MVP because 2018 and earned MVP (Windows) in 2024.

And don’t stress: RAPR will certainly not delete any type of chauffeurs currently in use. The only times I’ve ever before utilized RAPR’s pressure remove capability is when multiple sources of good guidance have actually prompted removal of a doubtful or bad vehicle driver so that it can be changed with a various, working, and older variation.

Using RAPR for System Cleanup & Optimization

By plan, I arrange vehicle driver cleanings quarterly through a calendar suggestion. In real method, I have a tendency to check points more often than that. It’s not unusual for me to run RAPR after Spot Tuesday goes and comes, simply to see what’s changed on my Computers. You can, certainly, do as you such as– simply make certain to do this a minimum of once or twice a year.

To operate the vehicle driver shop, you need to run RAPR.exe with management opportunities (right-click the filename and then pick “Run as administrator” from the resulting pop-up food selection). Next, you have to mention the things in the chauffeur store, which creates a screen that appears like Number 2.

With that in mind, take a look at the properties for your driver store directory site: if its dimension is over 5GB in Windows 10 or 10GB in Windows 11, I ‘d fire up RAPR and see what it can locate. If it’s over 8GB in Win10 or 15GB in Win11, you’ll absolutely want to see what’s in there and obtain rid of what you no longer need or desire.

How Drivers Install & Contribute to Bloat

Installment profits in two actions: (a) The third-party vehicle driver installer imports a chauffeur plan right into the driver store, and (b) the OS executes the real chauffeur installation, making use of the Drvinst.exe procedure (the executable for which resides in %SystemRoot% System32). As part of that procedure,. inf and.cat files are transferred in the motorist shop related to a DIID that takes the type of oemnnn.inf, where nnn stands for a one- to three-digit decimal number. (Note: if you intend to find this nnn number for any type of chauffeur in the shop– referred to as an index– you should utilize NirSoft’s exceptional DriverView energy. The device I recommend in this story will not reveal it to you.).

Figure 2 reveals my Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra 2’s chauffeur store after cleansing it up with RAPR. Before cleanup, it had 925 chauffeurs; after clean-up there were 906 left. Hence, 19 were gotten rid of. This decreased the size of the Vehicle driver Store from 6.44 GB to 5.91 GB, to recoup 0.53 GB of disk room, based upon residential or commercial properties for the FileRepository folder in which vehicle driver files reside. After that I went looking for and deleted replicate entrances: that brought the matter to 897, and the dimension to 5.87 GB (an additional financial savings of 0.04 GB, for a complete 0.57 GB).

The user-mode PnP supervisor tries to perform an automatic mount without user input or treatment. For installers that involve publishing of dialog boxes requiring individual input, the PnP manager carries out a Hardware Installment Wizard to look after such task( s) if the logged-in individual has admin benefits. (If not, this activity will be deferred until an admin-level customer next visit.).

As soon as you have actually run Windows 10 or 11 for some time, it can become bloated with obsolete device drivers. Usage Vehicle Driver Shop Explorer and easy techniques to remove outdated or unused things in the Windows driver shop.

To give you a concept of what can occur to this database for chauffeur documents, I have actually seen the overall product rely on this exact same equipment go as high as 1200, of which more than 150 products were duplicated Intel vehicle drivers of one kind or another (mainly Bluetooth or Wi-Fi). If you click any of the column heads displayed in this display screen, the listing will certainly re-sort itself based on values because column.

The Equipment Setup Wizard uses Configuration and CfgMgr (Configuration Supervisor) API features to locate INF documents that represent drivers that work with the discovered device. Mostly, this entails accessing such documents from the neighborhood documents system (or media like a CD or DVD) at the user’s direction.

Critical Advice & Best Practices for Driver Management

There’s an essential downside to take into consideration when eliminating components from the chauffeur shop. If you remove all chauffeurs except for the most recent one( s), you will not be able to make use of the Roll Back Chauffeur option in the Feature home window for the related tool in Gadget Supervisor.

Considering that 2009, Ed has also said and testified as an expert witness in over 60 license fits, mainly on web advancement and markup language topics. To find out more concerning Ed, visit his site at edtittel.com, where you’ll additionally locate his everyday Windows blog.

Keep in mind: For whatever reason, if you have multiple circumstances of devices on (or in) your computer, you should certainly have a different copy of a driver plan (oemnnn.inf) each– that’s why you shouldn’t always eliminate what might resemble unnecessary duplicates of the exact same motorist on a COMPUTER. Yet high matters of the same vehicle driver– or worse, high matters of numerous variations of drivers for the very same gadget– normally necessitate cleaning. The good news is, RAPR can handle this on your behalf.

In March 2021, Microsoft unleashed its Universal Publish design. Ever since, a lot of printers work with the same, simple collection of print chauffeurs. These are easily acquired and preserved via Windows Update, and they function reliably and well. For Computers or networks with older printers, one have to still visit the manufacturer’s internet site to download drivers tailored to work on certain printers (and printer setups, in some cases).

Keep in mind for admins: When you upgrade a release picture for distribution, you will usually update things in the driver store. Due to the fact that this does not automatically clean up older access as you include brand-new ones, you should use RAPR (or some comparable command-line roguishness) to clear out duplicate and out-of-date entrances. The only thing even worse than additional, unnecessary chauffeurs in the store on one computer is as many such copies as you’ve obtained images running in your venture!

You truly have to operate at it to hurt yourself utilizing RAPR, so you needn’t really feel obliged to make a photo back-up before cleaning up your vehicle driver store. Due to the fact that I’m a “belt-and-suspenders” kind of guy, I’ve gotten right into that behavior, simply in case I inadvertently remove something it transforms out I actually need. If you wind up with a falling short or unbootable maker after a too-aggressive clean-up, you can always refill that backup from the repair/recovery media for your PC. (Or you can place the old photo as a VM inside many backup energies, such as Macrium Reflect Free, and pluck the chauffeurs you require from that motorist shop making use of RAPR’s export and install tools.).

An old web stating additionally puts on Windows system optimization and cleaning: YMMV, an acronym for “your gas mileage may vary.” This means that different systems or release pictures will certainly exhibit various behaviors, values, etc.

For modern Windows versions (10 and 11) there’s an outstanding device offered to explicitly observe and handle the Windows motorist store. That tool comes from GitHub, and it’s called Driver Store Traveler (likewise referred to as RAPR.exe). Variation 0.12.135, the current variation as of this writing, functions quite well with both Windows 10 and 11.

Therefore, while every driver update device that I understand of aids keep vehicle drivers up to day, they do absolutely nothing to eliminate driver bloat. Installation earnings in two actions: (a) The third-party vehicle driver installer imports a chauffeur package into the vehicle driver shop, and (b) the OS carries out the actual vehicle driver setup, utilizing the Drvinst.exe process (the executable for which resides in %SystemRoot% System32). Keep in mind: For whatever reason, if you have multiple instances of tools on (or in) your PC, you have to without a doubt have a different duplicate of a chauffeur package (oemnnn.inf) for each one– that’s why you shouldn’t always eliminate what could look like unnecessary duplicates of the same vehicle driver on a PC. With Nvidia present drivers usually eating 2 to 2.5 GB per copy (or variation), maintaining older vehicle drivers around is a big waste of area. You can maintain 2 variations for safety and security if you like (merely uncheck the next-to-most-recent variation after utilizing RAPR’s Select Old Chauffeur( s) choice), but there’s no factor to maintain even more than 2 in the motorist shop.

Neither vendor-agnostic neither vendor-specific upgrade tools remove old motorists as they happily include brand-new ones. Thus, while every chauffeur upgrade tool that I know of helps keep chauffeurs approximately day, they do nothing to relieve vehicle driver bloat. In fact, the Intel DSA is stunningly efficient including in vehicle driver bloat, as you’ll see later in this tale.

The writer of greater than 100 computing books, Ed is possibly best known for his Examination Cram collection of qualification prep books and his half-dozen or two … For Dummies titles (including HTML For Dummies, now in a 14th version). These days, Ed composes routinely for Computerworld, Tom’s Equipment, and AskWoody.com.

As I stated previously, the Intel DSA and Nvidia applications are the most awful transgressors when it involves creating motorist bloat. Intel’s tool appears especially vulnerable to deposit up to dozens of duplicates of the exact same chauffeur in the vehicle driver store. My example cleaning, shown in Figure 3 later, reveals 7 circumstances for every of 2 Bluetooth USB gadgets. All are named “ibtusb.inf” because the target PC has 2 collections of USB ports, and every one uses a separate motorist instance.

With Nvidia show vehicle drivers typically eating 2 to 2.5 GB per copy (or version), keeping older vehicle drivers around is a massive waste of area. You can maintain 2 variations for security if you like (just uncheck the next-to-most-recent variation after utilizing RAPR’s Select Old Vehicle driver( s) option), yet there’s no factor to keep even more than two in the vehicle driver shop.

A a lot more conventional approach to trimming your driver shop may consequently be to keep the two most current chauffeurs for any type of provided tool, rather than only the most present one. I myself do not follow this approach, other than for drivers that are upgraded frequently or when making use of a beta motorist.