Where is the Galaxy Tab USB Driver?

If you own an original Samsung Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000 or GT-P1010) here’s how to install a driver for Windows. The driver does not appear to be available from Samsung, but it is, though not as a separate download. Selecting the GT-P1000 in the search on the support pages does not reveal the required USB driver. To access the Windows driver the Samsung Kies application needs to be installed. This then gives access to the driver for the Galaxy Tab. Go to the Kies download page at http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/usefulsoftware/KIES/. Click the KIES DOWNLOAD button under Download For Windows. Save the 70MB downloaded file, KiesSetup.exe, to a temporary directory.

Update: There are now two versions of Kies, Kies3 for newer phones and the original Kies. Use the original Kies for the older Galaxy Tabs.

When the download is complete run KiesSetup.exe. You will need to accept a Windows UAC dialog. Only allow the program to install if it came from the Samsung website. Programs from unkown sources can install malicious software.

Kies will install by default to C:\Program Files\Samsung\Kies. In this directory there is a USB Driver folder, in which is found the program SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones.exe. This can be run on other computers to install the Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000) USB driver without needing to install all of Kies.

At Tek Eye the Kies software is not used to manage Samsung devices. Instead a Virtual Machine (see Virtualization Software for Windows, Run Another OS for Free) was used on which the Kies installer was run. The Samsung driver program, SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones.exe, was copied off the Virtual Machine. It was then run to set up the driver. If you do run Kies but don't use it copy SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones.exe to a different location then uninstall Kies.