DriverMax to Archive and Update Your Device Drivers

I find formatting my hard drive very inconvenient; all those back ups (device drivers, documents, games saves, licenses etc.), and then applying service packs and updates, reinstalling favorite programs, customizing the settings of windows. All these processes are very time consuming. Although it’s been 3 years since my last format and there isn’t any noticeable speed decrease of my system. But just in case if something goes wrong, it is always good to be prepared. Perhaps the most complicated component to back is system drivers (since you can just copy all the others manually to some other partition/drive). That is where DriverMax comes in, with the help of this program at least we won’t have to worry about device drivers.

With DriverMax you can create a backup of your currently installed drivers. It is a free program which allows you to archive your currently installed drivers and does the installations all at once when you need to reinstall them. If you register DriverMax (which is free) you can also update your drivers (free version allows two updates per day).

How to update your drivers using DriverMax:
Open DriverMax then go to Updates and Identification and click the "Check for driver updates" item.

DriverMax will automatically open a web page containing the list of drivers installed on your computer. For each driver, you will see the version you have and the latest version that is available.
In order to update a certain driver from the list, just click on the diskette icon that is located on the right side of the screen. You will be taken to another page, which shows you the driver versions which are available for download. Pick a driver version, click the download link, and choose the Open option when asked whether you want to Open, Save or Cancel!

A small file with the extension .DMX-INFO will be downloaded. The .DMX-INFO file contains information about the driver you are about to download. The DriverMax Agent will start, and ask you whether you want to add the driver to the download list. Choose Yes.
The DriverMax Agent will wait in your system tray, and will download the driver when possible. This may take some time. You can double-click on the DriverMax Agent system tray icon to check the status of the download.

Once you completed downloading drivers select the driver you want to install and click install driver on the left panel.

DriverMax only works on XP/2003/Vista.

You can also try Driver Magician Lite and SlimDrivers which are also free.