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Generate a List of Installed Drivers from the Command Line

We've already covered how to take a quick look at the list of installed drivers using DriverView, but what if you are on a machine that doesn't already have that software installed? There's a command line utility that comes bundled with Windows Vista or XP that gives you similar output.

It's also useful if you are a command line junkie and have cygwin installed… you can just pipe the command through grep and quickly see exactly what you are looking for.

Running the command with no parameters will give you the default output:

image 

To get verbose output you can use the /v parameter:

driverquery /v

Or to output in list or csv format instead of the default table format, you can use the /FO switch

driverquery /FO [list, table, csv]

So for instance, if you ran the following command to give you verbose information in list format:

driverquery /FO list /v

You should see output similar to this:

image

If you have cygwin installed you could pipe this through grep, but you should be able to pipe the output into a file, for instance like this:

driveryquery > test.txt

image

Always useful to know how to use the command line!

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 12/7/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, System Administration

Comments (5)

  1. Goliax08

    After i type in "driverquery /v" it runs successfully but i cant enter in any more lines after that. (its like my command prompt doesnt respond)

  2. teslarage

    Thank you for sharing, very useful :)

  3. travis

    XP has a grep like util called findstr.exe, very useful when combined with the pipe. For example:

    driverquery /v | findstr /i vmware

    will show you only vmware drivers for example. There's also a "show lines that do not match" switch:

    driverquery | findstr /iv 8/4/2004

    will show you all drivers that do NOT have a link date of 8/4/2004. It's a fair replacement for grep IMHO.
    -T

  4. Jan

    Hi all,

    Even without cygwin installed, you can have the info saved into a textfile.

    Just type (in Vista) "driverquery > C:\Users\\Desktop\drivers.txt" (without quotes of course and replace with your own Windows account).

    Anyways, thanks for a very useful site with many very handy tweaks and tips! Much appreciated.

    Greetings,

    Jan

  5. Scott

    Just to let you know there is a typo on this line:

    driveryquery > test.txt

    Dont think the extra "y" is correct.

    I would have noticed it and not typed but i thought it would be good to change.
    I love these tips and how tos.
    Thanks


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