There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to determine what’s causing your computer hardware or software problem. You may have had a setup that was working perfectly, and suddenly, you start having problems. You may be trying to connect a new piece of hardware and although you’ve followed the installation instructions perfectly, the hardware still won’t work.

When To Suspect Driver Problems

Many things can be at the root of your troubles, but one thing you should always consider is the possibility of a driver problem. Driver problems can crop up instantly if the driver you’re using is corrupted, or becomes outdated after you’ve installed an update to the OS.

If you’ve attached a new piece of hardware, detach it and restart your computer. If everything works fine, you’re probably looking at a driver issue related to your new hardware. In this case, look for an updated driver from the manufacturer. Driver Detective will also locate, download and install the correct drivers for all of your attached hardware. Also consult the device’s manufacturer for information on known conflicts, and resolutions. If your new hardware conflicts with other devices already attached to your computer, the manufacturer or a third-party may have a workaround available.

Windows also keeps track of its last known working configuration, so you can always revert to the configuration your computer had prior to the installation of your new hardware. You may have to “back out” of an installation until you can determine what caused your problem and how you can solve it.

If reverting to the last known good configuration doesn’t help, you may have all the right drivers, but something has been corrupted or deleted. In this case you may need to locate the corrupted files or determine whether something important was accidentally erased and reload fresh copies of the corrupted or deleted materials.

For deleted and corrupted files, Driver Detective can help in two ways: first, it can determine that you’re missing necessary files (either because they’ve been deleted or your existing files are corrupted) and second, it can locate and reload fresh copies of your drivers. It saves you the trouble of having to locate drivers, and determine which drivers your computer hardware needs. It also saves you the trouble of working with a driver that was erroneously selected by Windows when it recognizes new hardware.

Photo Credit: Adrian Black

If you’ve never used another Windows operating system in a networked environment, or you’ve always used Windows on stand-alone computers, the move to a networked computer environment may leave you thinking that Windows Vista offers slow performance on a network. Today, I’ll take a look at some potential explanations for Vista’s sluggishness on a network and what you can do to improve Vista’s performance.

Vista File Transfers Seem Slow

My first suggestion seems like a no-brainer, but many people neglect to take this step. Make sure your copy of Windows Vista is up-to-date. Install all security patches and updates that are available for Vista (or whatever Windows OS you’re using). You can set Windows Vista to automatically download and install critical updates. If you don’t have your OS configured to do this, you should consider taking this all-important step. If you can’t bear the thought of Windows Vista doing something without your express consent, you can have Windows Vista download the updates and ask if you want them installed.

If file transfers over your network seem slow, you may want to check the driver for your network adapter. Make sure you have the latest one and verify that the driver you’re using is meant for the adapter you have. Windows Vista doesn’t always choose the correct driver for your hardware and your slow performance could be related to an incorrect or outdated driver.

One of the biggest culprits in slow network performance is the firewall. If your firewall is not configured correctly, your network activity can grind to a halt in very short order. The firewall’s job is to reject packets that don’t belong, so it takes a look at whatever comes and goes across the network. While this type of inspection is generally good, you need to make sure that the services you use (like FTP, HTTP, etc.) can traverse the firewall without getting caught up in erroneously applied rules.

Firewalls are notorious for being either over-configured or under-configured out of the gate. Users may install a firewall and think they’re protected, when in reality, the default firewall configuration allows everything under the Sun to pass through. Oppositely, some firewalls are locked down completely and let nothing (or virtually nothing) through, making your network a very lonely place indeed. If you have a firewall installed, read the documentation carefully and understand which services must be allowed for your applications to function properly.

There are a few other causes of slow network performance worth taking a look at. I’ll discuss these in a future post.

Photo Credit: Ian Lloyd

If you’re new to Windows Vista, you may experience problems with your existing hardware or software. You may also experience problems with a wireless network. Some of these issues can be traced back to driver problems, and Windows has a number of known driver problems.

Meeting Driver Problems Head On

If you’re upgrading to Windows Vista and have a wireless network already in place, you may find that you need to download new wireless drivers for your computer. Often, you’ll need a driver that was made specifically for Windows Vista. You can find these at the Web site of the company that made your wireless network equipment. Driver Detective can also be configured to download and install all of the drivers you need for your wireless network connection. You can revert to older drivers if you need to for some reason, so you won’t lose anything by trying a new driver.

Windows Vista’s driver updating service doesn’t always load the correct driver. You may find that you have a video display from one manufacturer, and Windows Vista recommends that you use another driver from another manufacturer. My best advice: don’t do it unless the manufacturer for your specific equipment doesn’t have a driver specific to Windows Vista and you’re stuck for other options. If you find that a recommended driver doesn’t match your hardware, you can go to the manufacturer’s site to get the proper one. Again, Driver Detective will automate the process of finding the correct driver, downloading it and installing it.

Third-party software sometimes works. In the Windows arena, third-party tools have gotten a bad rap because some of these tools turn out to be malicious software. You can find good third-party products that will get your system running, but you’ll need to do some research on the third-party tool as well as the source you intend to download it from. Some sources are notoriously rife with malware. You can usually find information on good third-party tools versus malware by reading recommendations from other users. Before you download or install anything, make sure that your anti-virus and anti-malware software programs are up-to-date.

Finally, you may find that some of your “driver” problems are actually compatibility problems. You’re most likely to see this if you’re running old software on a new computer or new software on an old computer. This is very true with game software and game-related hardware. Check with the software publisher to see if there are updates or patches for your software (or your OS) that will help smooth out the interplay between the software and the OS.

Photo Credit: Ross Imlach

If you use your computer at all these days, chances are good that you have valuable data stored on it. Whether it’s personal data like your tax returns, checkbook program, photos, videos and music, or data you need for work, you’re doing yourself a major disservice if you don’t have a data backup plan in place.

Hard disk failures and other computer catastrophes can strike at any time. Accidental erasure and file corruption are the most likely data disasters you’ll face, so it makes sense to prepare for those. Fortunately, Windows Vista has a built-in data backup and recovery system to protect your data from accidental loss.

Don’t Forget To Back Up Your Drivers

Backups are good not only for data, but also for system configuration information and hardware drivers. A computer’s configuration tends to be “set and forget.” Often we don’t remember exactly how the computer is configured. Having an up-to-date backup of your configuration information is critical if you ever need to restore a hard disk.

To get to the built-in backup and restore functions on Windows, choose Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Backup and Restore Center.
Choose Back up files. Windows Vista will start a wizard that will step you through the process of backing up the data on your hard disk. You may be asked to enter the administrator password for the computer to complete the backup process. You can also set Windows Vista to make regular backups of your data.

Backups require a bit of strategy. It’s good to make backups frequently, but your backups won’t help you much if they’re also stored on the same hard disk as the original data. You know… the hard disk that’s most likely to crash when you least expect it?

Think about what you want to store and where you want to store it. You may find that you want to back up your data to a removable hard disk that you store elsewhere, or that you want to write your backup files to another disk on your network. Having an independent data storage site is the best way to protect your data.

You may also find that you don’t want to store all of the data on your hard drive, but rather just the most important information. Your data storage site should be kept as secure as your hard disk is. If you encrypt your backed up data, just be sure that you can decrypt it later. It’s always a good idea to go through the decryption and data restore processes in a non-emergency to be sure you can do it when the chips are down.

Photo Credit: Barney Livingston