How to Backup Printer Drivers and Restore Them on Another Computer
Back when I had a forum on this site someone posted a utility that allows you to back up printer drivers on one computer and restore them on another. This utility has saved me countless amounts of time, especially when setting up new computers. And since I don’t have the forum anymore, I felt like I needed to re-share it. So in the following article I would like to show you how to use this great tool.
The first step is to download the Microsoft Print Migrator utility. This utility was actually designed to backup printers on print servers but also works on desktops. It’s also a stand-alone app so it can be ran from anywhere including your flash drive.
Once you open the Print Migrator, click on the “File” menu and select “Backup.” You will now choose a name and a location where you will backup your printers to. Click the “Open” button to begin the backup.
Once the printers are done backing up, you will see a message in the bottom window that says “Backup Complete.”
Now you are ready to restore the printers on another computer.
To restore them, just transfer the backup file and the Print Migrator utility to the other computer and open the Print Migrator. Then click the “File” menu and select “Restore.” Select the backup file that you created and click “Open.”
Once the printers have been restored you will see a message at the bottom that says “Restore Complete.”
You are now ready to use your printers. Thanks again to the user TheKoz who originally shared this utility.
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November 3rd, 2009 at 3:28 am
super, works , its simple, cant get any better. thank you so much…
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November 6th, 2009 at 8:03 am
This is a good tool. It seems like it carried all of the drivers to the other computer. When I plug in the printer, I see the “Add Hardware Wizard” window comes up. So i just click Next to let windows install it but it cannot find the drivers. I looked under Device Manager and it has a section called “Other Devices” and under that “Hewlett Packard. But I was able to communicate with the printer and print a test page. Do you know how to fix the Add Hardware Wizard from popping up?
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Casey Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Hi Binh,
I’ve never run into that problem when using this utility before. Does the printer have a card reader? If so, that’s probably why you are being prompted because this utility won’t copy over that driver. You would have to go to HP’s website and download the full driver to fix it.
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Binh Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Hi Casey
I have a HP Deskjet 3820 which does not have a card reader. Looking at the properties of the “Hewlett Packard” under “Other Devices” in Device Manager it says something like “on HP USB Printing Support” or something similar to it. This is also doing it to other standard printers as well. No extra features on the printers, just printing.
TIA
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Casey Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Okay, try downloading the drivers from HP’s website and see if that fixes the problem. There must have been something with the USB support that it couldn’t copy over for some reason. Let me know what happens.
Binh Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Downloading and installing the drivers for the HP printers worked. This fix is fine if i were trying to migrate just 1 printer but i’m working on a project that is re-imaging all their computers in the company (3000 PCs) where there are many different printer models and manufacture. So this would be a pain to try to re-install all the drivers again. Do you know what could migrate this particular USB printing driver support?
Casey Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Hi Binh,
Unfortunately, I don’t know why it’s doing this. Like I said, I’ve never run into this problem before as long as I have been using this utility. Hopefully this will work on the rest of your drivers and save you the trouble from at least having to reinstall all the others.
Will Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:02 am
This works great for the printers, which won’t show up on a normal driver backup utility like WinDriversBackup.
Use the above in tandem and you should be able to restore everything, though if you are re-imaging that many computers I’d hope you would have better imaging solutions.
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November 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Hi Casey
I have a HP Deskjet 3820 which does not have a card reader. Looking at the properties of the “Hewlett Packard” under “Other Devices” in Device Manager it says something like “on HP USB Printing Support” or something similar to it. This is also doing it to other standard printers as well. No extra features on the printers, just printing.
TIA
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March 14th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Windows 7 no trae el controlador de la impresora Epson FX 1170, lo hice con esta aplicacion y funciona perfecto
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August 1st, 2010 at 12:21 pm
The link to get to the Printer Migrator’s webpage has changed slightly (the version without the ?info=EXLINK bit at the end redirects to an irrelevant page now): http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2003/techinfo/overview/printmigrator3.1.mspx?info=EXLINK
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Casey Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Thanks! I updated the link.
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April 27th, 2011 at 1:33 am
thanks a lot, it’s awesome. Very useful for my work.
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October 30th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Thanks I was having such hassles getting window 7 drivers for my HP Desk Jet 930c – HP sent me to Windows Update and windows update sent me to HP. I had it working on my one computer. So your suggestion worked perfectly. Thanks again.
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December 7th, 2011 at 10:10 am
Thanks a lot!
Saved my day!
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December 28th, 2011 at 4:03 am
superb, mate
saved me loads of work – had to transfer settings for 3 network printers and this tool is really sweet for that.
thank you for the advice, Helmuts
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January 17th, 2012 at 7:40 am
와 님아 감사여. 나도 똑같은 문제로 윈7에서 드라이버 백업하려고 찾아봣는데 구글링으로 드뎌 찾았네염. 님 짱드삼. 이거 정말 물건이네여.
감솹니다. 나는 한쿸인이라 영어를 못해여. 구글번역기를 함 돌려서 읽어보세여.
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January 31st, 2012 at 7:56 am
It looks like a nice utility, but I could not get it to resore to another workstation. I backed up on one workstation which had 28 network printers, but I could never get it to resore on another workstation. It looked like it was loading everything into the restore workstation, but it didn’t.
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