[Solved] Integrating Drivers and Dealing with Duplicates?

[yogurt]

I noticed that duplicate driver files are highlighted in blue in AiO Integrator.

Is their any reason why I need to hang on to these duplicates?

EDIT : Disregard, I found the answer browsing thru the various DriverPack folders. It seems the duplicates belong to devices that are on the same device branch for that hardware / class

Edited October 29, 2012 by dotfusion

[Legolash2o]

Do you need to keep them and integrate them?

[yogurt]

Do you need to keep them and integrate them?

That's more or less I was wondering when I posted...

Here is what I've been able to figure out thus far. Take for example a memory card reader like The Broadcom Card Reader Model X

The Card Reader resides on two branches of the Device Manager -- SD host adapters (Broadcom SD Host Controller) + Storage Controllers Branch (Broadcom Memory Stick) Both devices share the same ,<driver.inf>.

Upon introducing the device to windows for example, during installation, Windows will search for the device.inf across the entire driver db for a suitable drier.inf and will stop on the first .inf file it finds that matches the HWD and install. The same process applies to pretty much all devices connected to a windows machine.

In essence, the <device>.inf in directory 'A' which is identical to the <device>.inf in Directory B will get processed for the Broadcom Card Reader. So wherever it resides in the driver pack doesn't matter, The important thing is the HWID.

Driver Packs such as the ones found at Driver Packs.net have 100's of duplicates within their folder structure. The same .inf file that resides in the vista folder may also have dupe in the win7 folder. for the same hardware. The files in each folder are identical for that specific piece of hardware.

I'll be testing some theories tomorrow and post my results here. Hope this makes sense.

Edited October 29, 2012 by dotfusion

[bphlpt]

I'm not sure if this is right, but one possible explanation of why there might be duplicates in some of the Driver Packs files would be for the convenience of users who only choose to include the ones that are marked for their OS in order to minimized the size of the driver folder they include on their install media, ie someone with Vista might just include the drivers marked for Vista, while someone with Win7 might only include the ones marked for Win7. Does that make sense?

Cheers and Regards

[yogurt]

@bphlpt, thanks for sharing your insight.

After taking a closer look under the hood what your saying makes perfect sense, However, why not just have one let say 'WinALL' or 'Win7xVista' exclusively instead of having 2 folders holding the exact same set of files? Some Driver Pack categories follow this convention quite nicely while others don't. It not a big deal for someone who understands the mechanics of device drivers, but it can be quite daunting to someone who is just starting out.

Nonetheless, The folders are so will documented it's quite easy to deduct the dupes when used in conjunction with Win Tool Kit's sorting options I started of with over 300 inf files and was able to eliminate over 200 redundant dupes without adverse effects in a matter of 10 minutes

To illustrate here is a list of 20 drivers for System X (Before Consolidation) As you can see their are 5 duplicates across 21 folders.

Here is the same list of drivers for System X with 0 Duplicates in using only 8 folders (After Consolidation).

Much easier to manage and less scrolling

Edited October 29, 2012 by dotfusion

[bphlpt]

You might want to post your comments about your experiences over at the Driver Packs forum. They might have some tools or other suggestions on how to implement things the way you want even quicker and more automated. To me, the solution might be to implement the "duplicates" as shortcuts or hard links so that there is really only one copy of each file, even if there are more than one place to access it. There are also some duplicate finder type apps, Auslogics Duplicate File Finder and Digital Volcano Duplicate Cleaner are two free ones that come to mind, that might be able to do a quick search for true duplicate drivers, that is if they are really identical.

Cheers and Regards

[yogurt]

...the solution might be to implement the "duplicates" as shortcuts or hard links so that there is really only one copy of each file, even if there are more than one place to access it.

You suggestion to use symbolic links sounds interesting, I suppose the links could act as placeholders to the parent .inf file for that specific branch of the hardware device.

There are also some duplicate finder type apps, Auslogics Duplicate File Finder and Digital Volcano Duplicate Cleaner are two free ones that come to mind, that might be able to do a quick search for true duplicate drivers, that is if they are really identical.

The tools you also suggested look interesting. I wonder if they are free Thanks for sharing.

[bphlpt]

There are also some duplicate finder type apps, Auslogics Duplicate File Finder and Digital Volcano Duplicate Cleaner are two free ones that come to mind, that might be able to do a quick search for true duplicate drivers, that is if they are really identical.

The tools you also suggested look interesting. I wonder if they are free Thanks for sharing.

LOL

Cheers and Regards

[yogurt]

:doh: thanks for the highlighting. I've taken a look at both tools. Neither of them do anything that I cant already do in my modded windows shell. Beyond Compare is a tool I use often when comparing a large number of files and folders. Woks good for me.

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder was interesting. Digital Volcano Duplicate Cleaner, looks promising on the surface, but in reality the program is limited to one feature only, so to get anything useful you got to $$$$. With only one feature enabled you may as well call it trial ware. $29.95 is not bad, but I think $12.95 would be more of a reasonable price for what the tool can do. Anyhow in the end I decided to add it to my arsenal of tools. Best Regards.

Edited October 30, 2012 by dotfusion

[rulman]

Duplicate File Detective

http://www.duplicate-file-detective.com/download/index.htm

[bphlpt]

That one is definitely commercial Trialware. (Another commercial product I have had good success with in the past is FolderMatch, but it all depends on the app you get used to more than anything else, I supose.)

Yes, the free version of Duplicate Cleaner is a one-feature app, find and move or delete duplicate files. But I've found it orders of magnitude faster at that one feature than Auslogics is, for example. One of the various duplicate file cleaner apps I've used in the past had the option to convert the duplicate entry to a symbolic link to the other entry, so all existing program shortcuts will continue to work, but the actual disc space used is reduced, but sorry, I don't remember which app that was that had that option and can't seem to find it at the moment. Maybe someone else will know about it.

Cheers and Regards