DrvNest scans every device in your PC, tells you which ones have no driver, and installs the missing and outdated ones from the Windows Update catalog or from a folder on a USB stick. It downloads in parallel, keeps going after the restarts a driver install needs, and can put your old drivers back with no internet connection at all.
One file, roughly 65 MB. No installer, no .NET runtime to add, no Visual C++ Redistributable, nothing bundled. All releases, the arm64 build and checksums.txt →
You have just reinstalled Windows. Device Manager is full of yellow exclamation marks, the resolution is wrong, there is no sound and — worst of all — no internet, because the network adapter has no driver either. You need the internet to download a driver, and a driver to reach the internet.
DrvNest breaks that loop from a single window: it enumerates the hardware, matches it against drivers it can actually reach, and installs them. When there is no network at all, it installs from a folder you brought with you.
Every one of these is in the shipping application — there is no roadmap section pretending to be a feature list.
Enumerates all present PnP devices through SetupAPI and CfgMgr32 rather than WMI, so it works on a machine that was formatted five minutes ago or whose WMI repository is broken.
Reads live Configuration Manager problem codes. Code 28, 1 and 19 mean "no driver"; 22 is a disabled device and 14 is one waiting for a restart. Filters let you look at problem devices, driverless devices or devices running a generic driver.
Talks to Microsoft Update through the Windows Update Agent COM API that already ships with Windows. No extra service to install, no third-party driver mirror in the middle.
Parses the INF packages in any folder — a USB stick, a network share, a DrvNest backup or a vendor download you extracted — and matches them to your hardware ids.
Three concurrent downloads by default, configurable from one to eight. Installs are serialized on purpose: Windows Update returns WU_E_OPERATIONINPROGRESS for a second concurrent install and the PnP subsystem serializes anyway.
Queue state is written to session.json after every change and a logon-triggered
scheduled task brings DrvNest back with --resume, so a ten-driver queue that
needs three restarts finishes itself.
A driver-type system restore point before the first install of a session, and an export of each driver package immediately before it is replaced, with the path recorded in the history entry.
Exports every third-party driver package with pnputil /export-driver into a
folder or a ZIP, and restores with pnputil /add-driver /subdirs /install.
Microsoft's in-box drivers are deliberately skipped — Windows reinstalls those itself.
Every device and hardware id in a plain text file, so you can carry it on a USB stick to a working computer and look the drivers up by hand when nothing else is available.
A permanent record of every driver operation as one JSON object per line, filterable by outcome and exportable to CSV in a click, plus a live diagnostic log with a copy button that includes the version and OS header.
The built-in updater compares the download against the SHA-256 in the release's
checksums.txt, and refuses to install anything when the checksum is missing or
does not match. It never updates silently in the background.
The interface language and the dark or light theme both switch instantly while the application is open, with no restart.
This is the walkthrough DrvNest exists for. The five minutes you spend before the format are what make the machine usable immediately afterwards.
Drivers and keep it next to DrvNest.exe. DrvNest then registers it as a local driver repository automatically, with no configuration.DrvNest.exe --rescue. Windows Update is never contacted; only local sources are used.No backup, no internet, nothing prepared? Use Dashboard → Hardware report to write every hardware id to a text file, carry it to a working computer, download the right packages from the vendor, extract them, bring the folders back and install them with Restore from folder. Start with the network adapter; once that works, Windows Update handles the rest.
DrvNest.exe # normal launch
DrvNest.exe --rescue # offline rescue mode (same as --offline)
DrvNest.exe --resume # continue an interrupted queue straight awayDriver updaters have a bad reputation, and it is mostly earned: a free scan that finds forty problems, a paywall in front of the fix, a resident service, and an installer that brings friends. DrvNest is built the other way round. It is also worse than commercial tools in a few specific ways, and those are listed here rather than buried.
| DrvNest | The common freeware pattern | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT licensed | Free scan, paid unlock to install |
| Source code | Public, auditable, buildable | Closed |
| Bundled extras | None | Often a "PC cleaner", a toolbar or a trial |
| Telemetry | None | Commonly present |
| Background service | None — it runs when you run it | Resident agent and periodic nags |
| Where drivers come from | Microsoft's Windows Update catalog, plus INF folders you point it at | A vendor-operated driver mirror |
| Works with no internet | Yes — rescue mode, USB and local INF folders | Rarely |
| Code signing | Not signed — verify the SHA-256 in checksums.txt | Usually signed |
| Install size | One ~65 MB file that needs nothing else | A small installer plus its dependencies |
The honest small print. DrvNest is not code-signed, so SmartScreen and Smart App Control will warn you on first run; the fix is to verify the published SHA-256 rather than to trust the file blindly. It needs administrator rights, it only runs on 64-bit Windows 10 1607 or newer, the executable is large because the whole .NET runtime is inside it, and installs run one at a time because Windows will not do them in parallel. Installing drivers is inherently risky: leave the restore-point setting on, keep backups, and read the disclaimer in the repository.
The full list, including the technical questions, is in docs/FAQ.md.
Yes. DrvNest is released under the MIT licence and the full source code is on GitHub. There is no paid tier, no trial, no feature that unlocks after payment, no advertising and no bundled third-party software. The scan and the installs are the same product.
No. The entire .NET 8 runtime is inside DrvNest.exe as a self-contained
single-file publish, and WPF carries its own private copies of
vcruntime140_cor3.dll and msvcp140_cor3.dll. The only requirement
is 64-bit Windows 10 version 1607 (build 14393) or newer. That is also why the executable is
around 65 MB.
DrvNest is not code-signed, because a code-signing certificate costs money. Windows SmartScreen and Smart App Control show a warning for any unsigned executable that has not built up reputation, and a single-file app that runs as administrator, installs drivers and registers a scheduled task looks like malware to a heuristic scanner.
The honest mitigation is to verify the download. Run
Get-FileHash .\DrvNest.exe -Algorithm SHA256 and compare the result with the
DrvNest.exe line in the checksums.txt published with the release.
A match means the file is byte-for-byte the published one. You can also build it yourself
from source.
Yes, and that is what it was built for. Before the format, use Backup &
Restore to export every third-party driver package, then copy that folder and
DrvNest.exe onto the same USB stick. After the format, start
DrvNest.exe --rescue: Windows Update is never contacted and only local sources
are used.
A folder named Drivers next to DrvNest.exe is registered
automatically as a local driver repository. Any vendor driver folder you extracted yourself
works too, because its INF files are matched recursively.
Yes, in three ways.
rstrui.exe).
Yes. The queue is written atomically to session.json on every state change, and
DrvNest registers a logon-triggered scheduled task called
DrvNest\ResumeSession, falling back to an HKLM RunOnce value when
Task Scheduler is unavailable. At the next logon the task relaunches DrvNest with
--resume and the remaining jobs continue. A session survives at most ten
restarts, and the task and RunOnce value are removed when the queue finishes.
Installing a driver is a privileged operation. Adding packages to or exporting them from the
driver store with pnputil, driving the Windows Update installer and creating a
system restore point through srclient.dll all require an elevated token, and the
resume task is registered under HKLM. DrvNest asks for elevation up front in its application
manifest rather than failing with "access denied" in the middle of a queue.
No. There is no telemetry, no usage statistics and no device identifiers. Exactly two things
ever leave the machine: Windows Update queries, which go straight to Microsoft through
Windows' own Windows Update Agent and are skipped entirely in offline or rescue mode, and a
single request to the GitHub Releases API when you press Check for updates.
Everything else stays in %ProgramData%\DrvNest on your own machine.
Download the executable, put it wherever you like and double-click it. To remove it, delete the
file and optionally the %ProgramData%\DrvNest folder — nothing is left in the
registry once a queue has finished.