Version: R461
Release date: July 6, 2016
Developers: SamLab(driverpacks) / BadPointer(programming)
OFFICIAL Website: https://sdi-tool.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SnappyDriverInstaller
SDI ON Patreon =
https://www.patreon.com/sdi_tool?ty=h
SDI Translation Project =
https://www.transifex.com/sn...ler/snappy-driver-installer/
Change log
https://sourceforge.net/p/sn...ver-installer/wiki/ChangeLog
http://sourceforge.net/p/snappy-driver-installer/code/log
System Requirements: Windows 2003/XP/Vista/2008/7/8/8.1/10/Srv2k/Srv2008
Language: Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Belorussian, Portuguese, Czech, English,
Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Latvian, Polish,
Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.
Description:
If you lost your discs with drivers, unable to find drivers on manufacturer's website or Windows Update cannot to configure your hardware, you can use this tool to find and install all missing drivers.
If you're a PC technician, you can keep the tool on your USB flash drive or external hard drive and use it wherever you go, even in environments with no Internet access. You can also use it after performing a clean installation of Windows.
Why You Will Love It From The First Time ?:
Free
No limitations. No premium features. No adware. No gotchas.
Portable
Keep it on your USB flash drive and use it on the go. No installation is necessary.
Up-to-date
You'll be notified about available updates and you'll be able to download them with the tool itself.
Safety
Automatically creates a system restore point.
Supports all Windows
Compatible with all versions of Windows, including server editions.
Customizable
Pick any theme you like or make your own.
Accurate
The state of the art in algorithm of finding best matching drivers for any devices.
Open source
Licensed under GNU GPL v3.0. You can review the source code and submit patches.
Multilingual
Twenty languages are supported. Your language is probably among them.
Features:
- Written in C/C++.
- Licensed under GNU GPL v3 (Open source).
- The state of the art in algorithm of finding best matching drivers for any devices.
- Tiny size(less than one megabyte).
- Fast indexing of driverpacks, start up, driver installation.
- Automatic updating of driverpacks and the application over the Internet.
- Support for installation from both driverpacks and folders at the same time.
- Unattended installation(/autoinstall switch) with PC rebooting when necessary.
- Creation of snapshots of systems so other users could emulate foreign systems.
- Virus warnings informing user that the media with the application compromised.
- Multilingual interface.
- Themes.
How to update torrent.
Snappy Driver Installer downloads updated driverpacks and the application via the torrent technology. This is why it’s important that torrent users on trackers seed this torrent for as long as possible and when it’s updated they should update their torrent as soon as possible.
Make sure settings.cfg contains “-checkupdates” so that you’ll be notified when updates are available.
Method 1(simple)
- 1. Delete the old .torrent + Data.
- 2. Download the updated torrent and start downloading.
- 3. ????
- 4. PROFIT!!!
Method 2(advanced)
- 1. Delete the old .torrent while keeping Data.
- 2. Download the updated torrent.
- 3. Uncheck “Start downloading” or stop it if it’s already started.
- 4. Right click on the torrent in your torrent client and choose “Force re-check”.
- 5. Start downloading.
- 6. Clear readonly attribute on files in the Drivers folder.
- 7. Run del_old_driverpacks.bat.
SamLab makes all driverpacks for SamDrivers and includes three application for driver installation. SamDrivers is released as ISO which makes it impossible to download individual driverpacks and it's awkward to use since most users run SDI from a flash drive or an external HDD anyway.
Snappy Driver Installer has integrated mini torrent client which is used to keep driverpacks and the application up to date. Torrent users can join the swarm by seeding this torrent.
Snappy Driver Installer release is based on SamDrivers with a few changes:
1. Deleted “Soft” folder.
2. Deleted DriverPack Solution and Drivers Installer Assistant.
3. Torrent is released as folder instead of it being an ISO image.
4. SamDrivers is released each month. However SamLab updates driverpacks each week and Snappy Driver Installer always has latest driverpacks.
Snappy Driver Installer is the only truly Open Source project and is free to use. It doesn’t have ads, bloatware or premium features for which you have to pay. Unlike many applications of this class, Snappy Driver Installer can be used without the Internet connection because it has a full set of drivers in its driverpacks.
Let’s narrow down to driver installers which work using driverpacks. SamDrivers includes three application for driver installation:
1. DriverPack Solution(DPS) by BadPointer(formerly) and ArtX
2. Drivers Installer Assistant(DIA) by Romeo91
3. Snappy Driver Installer(SDI) by BadPointer
First release
DPS - 22.06.2008
DIA - 12.05.2009
SDI - 09.02.2014
Development status
DPS - only interface and bloatware have been being updated over past year.
DIA - Latest release: 28.04.2014.
SDI - active development.
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. 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 has 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.
How is the developer of Snappy Driver Installer related to DriverPack Solution?
BadPointer is a former DriverPack Solution(DPS) developer. DPS 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 BadPointer. Since he left DPS, there was no one on the DPS team who understands that code enough to be able to work on it. Over the last year the only GUI and bloatware have been being updated while 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.
BadPointer had been planning to rewrite DPS from scratch in C/C++ for a long time while fixing all known problems but he end up creating Snappy Driver Installer which is technically both a fork and a rewrite of DPS.
DriverPack Solution has been around since 2008. From 2011 and forward it outperformed all applications in this class. Snappy Driver Installer was first released in February 2014 and upon its release it left DriverPack Solution far behind in terms of reliability, speed and other metrics.
Both DPS and SDI use the same driverpacks which are made by SamLab. It means that he has to make sure that his driverpacks work with the weakest installer and it has its price.
Driverpacks greatly grew in size because SamLab had to include multiple duplicate drivers in order to trick DPS into installing the correct driver even if it would rather install the wrong one. He also sometimes had to modify drivers. Some drivers can't be included in driverpacks because DPS would try to install them on the wrong hardware resulting in BSOD. Sometimes it's impossible to force DPS into installing correct drivers and the users keep sending bugreports about the same known issues.
If support for DPS could be eventually dropped, driverpack size would be smaller, extraction would be faster, more drivers could be added, there would be no need to modify drivers, the developers would not be distracted by bugreports about the issues which aren't relevant to Snappy Driver Installer.