SamDriver

The difference between DriverPack Solution and SamDrivers.

SamLab(he's a person) makes driverpacks for his SamDrivers and the same driverpacks are also used by DriverPack Solution. SamDrivers includes 3 applications for driver installation as opposed to only one in DriverPack Solution. It should be noted that SamDrivers’s edition of DriverPack Solution is modified: expert mode is enabled by default, disabled downloading and executing of a JS script from the Internet, removed some bloatware, etc. Since some bloatware isn’t available in English, so you’re better off using SamDrivers anyway.

I recommend using Snappy Driver Installer(included in SamDrivers) and here is why.

I’m a former DriverPack Solution developer. The application is written in JavaScript which is very slow and throws scripting errors due different versions of IE. Support for IE 6.0 can’t be dropped because Windows XP comes with it and it would be inconvenient to require the user to install IE 8.0 before running DriverPack Solution.

The current implementation of algorithm of choosing and installing drivers is made entirely by me. Since I left DPS, there was no one on the DPS team who understands that code enough to be able to work on it. If you take a closer look at the DPS updates over the last year, you'll see that only GUI and bloatware are being updated. This means that long known problems(notably, sound drivers, touchpad instead of mouse and Intel USB 3.0) were never addressed and aren’t likely to ever be fixed.

I had been planning to rewrite DPS from scratch in C/C++ for a long time while fixing all known problems but I end up creating Snappy Driver Installer which is techically a fork and rewrite of DPS. It’s faster, smaller, more stable, better at finding the correct drivers.
You can read more there: https://code.google.com/p/snappy-driver-installer/
You can also fill a bugreport, provide a translation to your language and etc via Issues on Google Code.

SamDrivers includes:
1. DriverPack Solution(DPS)
2. Drivers Installer Assistant(DIA)
3. Snappy Driver Installer(SDI)

Let’s compare them.

Size
DPS - 34 MB (291 files)
DIA - 44 MB (189 files)
SDI - 1.3 MB (42 files) Without localization and themes - 1 MB(one file).

Dependance and standaloneness
DPS - Depends on IE. Writes to registry.
DIA - Depends on vbscript libraries. Installs them without asking the user.
SDI - Works on Windows 2000 and above(including WindowsPE). Doesn't leave traces in the system.

Indexing time
DPS - 280 secs (4:40)
DIA - 123 secs (2:03)
SDI - 19 secs (13 secs on indexing and 6 secs on compressing)

Start up time
DPS - 10 secs
DIA - 3 secs
SDI - 0.5 sec

Driver selection algorithm
DPS - It has many well known problems which are fixed in SDI.
DIA - It used to lag behind DPS but at this point it catched up with DPS.
SDI - It takes in account much more information about devices and drivers. It’s possible to see a full list of compatible drivers for each device and pick a driver manually but it’s not required since the list is sorted that best drivers end up being on in the beginning of the list. The point is DPS doesn’t do driver ranking.

Installation method
DPS - devcon.exe. It is as reliable as installing via Device Manager.
DIA - DPInst.exe. It often fails to install even correctly picked drivers.
SDI - Win32API. It is as reliable as installing via Device Manager. Automatically clicks on “Continue” when asked about installing unsigned drivers.


Hints
• You don't have to burn it on a DVD or mount the ISO in a virtual drive. You can extract the content of the ISO and keep on USB flash stick or an external drive.
• You can strip SamDrivers off everything everything but Snappy Driver Installer:
Drivers\*.* (driverpacks)
Tools\SDI\*.* (localizations and themes)
Indexes\SDI\*.* (optional, SDI will reindex driverpacks when needed)
SDI-drv.exe (the application)


If you have some questions, go ahead and ask away.