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Difficulty: HardTroubleshooting Windows OS Startup and Boot Errors

During a scheduled maintenance window, a system administrator updates the storage controller drivers on a Windows 10 workstation. Upon rebooting, the system fails to start and displays a Stop Error (BSOD) indicating CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED, followed by an automatic reboot into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). The administrator suspects that the newly installed third-party storage driver is corrupt and causing a kernel crash during early boot initialization. Which command should the administrator execute from the WinRE command prompt to list all third-party drivers installed on the offline Windows OS partition so the problematic driver package can be identified?

  1. dism /image:C:\ /get-driversAnswer
  2. B
    pnputil /enum-drivers /offline:C:\
  3. C
    bootrec /scanos
  4. D
    driverquery /v /fo list

Answer

The command dism /image:C:\ /get-drivers must be executed to enumerate third-party driver packages on an offline Windows installation within WinRE.
The correct option is the command dism /image:C:\ /get-drivers. DISM is the standard Windows command-line tool capable of targeting offline operating system installations using the /image switch. When combined with /get-drivers, it inspects the offline driver store and outputs details for all installed third-party drivers (listed as oem#.inf files), enabling the administrator to identify the corrupt driver for removal.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the environment and requirements
The system cannot boot into standard Windows due to a corrupt driver causing a early boot Stop Error (BSOD), requiring offline servicing from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).
WinRE loads a minimal PE environment from which offline system image modification is required.
2
Select the appropriate offline image servicing tool
DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) is the native Windows utility designed to service offline Windows images.
Tools like PnPUtil and driverquery operate only within an active online Windows OS instance.
3
Apply the correct DISM switches for offline driver enumeration
Executing dism /image:C:\ /get-drivers targets the offline C: system directory and enumerates third-party driver publish names (e.g., oem#.inf).
This allows the technician to locate the exact driver INF file name needed for subsequent removal via dism /image:C:\ /remove-driver.

Key Concept

Offline Driver Servicing in WinRE using DISM

Alternative Method

Alternatively, the administrator could boot into Safe Mode if reachable, or use DISM to remove the driver package directly once the published driver name (oem#.inf) is identified.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Troubleshooting Windows OS Startup and Boot Errors

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