Whether you’ve gotten a new piece of hardware, moving existing hardware to a new computer, or trying to recover from any of hundreds of potential computer disasters, you’ll probably agree that the worst part of the project is dealing with your hardware drivers. Hardware drivers are pieces of control software that allow your computer to interface with and operate your hardware. A company other than the one that made your computer, or the computer’s operating system often makes peripheral computer hardware, so the potential for problems is boundless.

Driver Management Can Be A Lot Of Work

Managing drivers can be both difficult and time-consuming. Adding new hardware is always a bit of a gamble. What if the new hardware doesn’t make nice with the operating system, or with other pieces of hardware you have connected to your computer?

The opposite can also happen when you upgrade the computer hardware or the operating system but want to continue to use the old peripheral devices. As many new Windows 7 users are discovering, their hardware manufacturers have decided not to provide a driver for older model monitors, graphics adapters, or printers. The hardware is still in good working order and could remain in service if only it had a driver.

Hardware manufacturers have many different reasons for not wanting to support their older product lines. Either the engineering on the hardware is such that writing a new driver would be difficult, or they may simply want to encourage users to upgrade to a newer model. Sometimes, the decision not to support an older piece of hardware is related to the business itself. A company may have merged with or acquired another hardware manufacturer and no longer has the staff in place to support older hardware lines.

Even when a hardware manufacturer decides to support an older product by producing a driver, users can still have difficulty finding, installing and using the driver. The vendor updates drivers periodically, and users can easily miss an update. This may not initially cause problems for the user, but hiccups may occur when the user applies an OS upgrade or patch to the system.

Keeping drivers updated is key to maintaining a working computer environment. That’s why so many people have chosen Driver Detective as their preferred driver management software. Driver Detective locates, installs and monitors drivers to ensure that your system always has working copies of the latest drivers your system hardware needs to operate.

If you haven’t already downloaded Driver Detective, I invite you to try it for yourself and see what excellent driver management software can do for your system.

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If you’ve decided to make the most of your Thanksgiving Day weekend by upgrading your computer to run Windows 7, you may be in for a long (or short) haul, depending upon where you’re starting from Windows 7 can be applied as an upgrade to your OS if you’re running Windows Home Premium or better. In this case, the underpinnings of Windows 7 – along with working drivers for Windows 7 if you’re lucky – are already loaded on your computer and the upgrade process is in order. If you’re running Windows Vista Home Basic or an earlier version of Windows, you’ll either need to do a clean installation, or you’ll need to upgrade to Vista, then upgrade to Windows 7.

Driver Issues May Still Keep You Down

The Windows upgrade route isn’t going to be a smooth sail for many users. The process is rather time consuming, in part, because Windows needs to do a lot of verifying on your existing setup to make sure all of your drivers, components and applications are in order. Not every application that ran smoothly under Vista will run under Windows 7, and part of Windows 7’s setup routine is to verify that each application will (or won’t) run.

If your computer has a lot of applications installed, this part of the setup process can take an extraordinarily long time. Applications that don’t pass the sniff test are marked as such and Windows 7 won’t allow these programs to run in the new OS environment.

Although Microsoft has worked closely with hardware manufacturers to make sure that drivers are available for hardware, there are still a few driver problems to be had, and many manufacturers have announced (post-release) that some of their hardware lines simply won’t be supported under Windows 7.

Before you upgrade your computer, check with the hardware manufacturers that created your monitors, printers, drives, mice, etc., to see whether they’ve created a driver for your particular hardware. In some case, a driver isn’t currently available, but is in the works; in other cases, you may find your hardware on the list of obsolete devices.

That may not be of much comfort to you, but at least you’ll know going into the process whether or not all of your hardware will be making the journey with you. If some pieces of hardware don’t have a Windows 7-compatible driver, you may find luck with a generic driver, or you may find that it’s easier and less hassle to spring for a peripheral upgrade.

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If you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 (64-bit version) or you’re considering the move, you should know that one of the security features Microsoft built into the 64-bit version of the OS is a requirement that all 64-bit device drivers must be digitally signed. Digital signatures aren’t really a favorite among anyone who has a stake in the issue, but the rationale for insisting upon digital signatures is that rogue drivers won’t make it into the system load.

Is There A Workaround For An Unsigned Driver

Most sophisticated technical users don’t really appreciate the “nanny” aspect of this security feature. Microsoft is in charge of passing out the digital signatures, and as you might expect, there’s a cost to getting your driver signed. Now, the cost isn’t borne by the user, but instead, the manufacturer of the driver needs to pony up for the digital signature. That’s why manufacturers don’t much care for this feature.

Users tend not to like it much because an unsigned driver won’t work. It can’t because it never gets loaded. Even if the driver were otherwise flawless, the fact that it doesn’t have a signature will prevent it from seeing the light of day. That’s why users don’t much like the feature.

So, naturally, the question arises: is there a workaround for an unsigned driver? Well, yes there is, but users aren’t going to like it much. If you want to use an unsigned driver, you’ll need to press F8 every time your system boots up. This will quickly turn into a major pain for users who don’t want to hang around while their computer gets its act together. That’s Microsoft’s acknowledgment that there may be times when a user really needs to load an unsigned driver. The F8 business was built into the Windows 7 OS to allow for driver testing. It’s in the final version and you can use it as a way around the annoying “unsigned driver” problem.

So, if the annoying workaround is too horrible (or inconvenient) to follow, is there a real workaround for an unsigned driver? (A real workaround as in one that doesn’t require user intervention each time the computer boots up.)

I’ve seen at least two different workarounds, but both involve disabling the User Account Control (UAC). Now, for some users, disabling UAC isn’t a problem, since they don’t like it anyway. UAC is that annoying program that pops up warnings when the computer concludes that you might be doing something that could lead to computer ruin. If you’re intent on using unsigned drivers (or opening up your system to unsigned drivers) and don’t mind taking the safety cables off, I’ll share some unsigned driver solutions in my next post.

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Since the release of Windows 7 nearly one month ago, a number of hardware manufacturers have come through with drivers for hardware. The list of non-supported hardware is also growing. If you’re having difficulty finding drivers for Windows, there are a few steps you can take.

Finding Drivers For Windows Without Getting Frustrated

Generally, you’re not likely to have much luck finding Windows 7 drivers for hardware that never got a Vista driver. If this is the case, you may want to seek out third-party drivers or generic drivers if your hardware is common.

If the manufacturer developed a driver for Vista, there’s at least a reasonable chance that they’ll either have developed a driver for Windows 7 or that the Vista driver will work for Windows 7. This isn’t a guarantee by any stretch, but it’s definitely worth the few minutes of your time that it may take to find the driver.

Just because the manufacturer made a driver for Vista doesn’t mean that the device will get Windows 7 support. Check with the manufacturer for their list of supported hardware devices in Windows 7. The manufacturer may also supply information about older hardware and what to do if you have an older model.

Microsoft encouraged hardware manufacturers to supply drivers prior to the release of Windows 7, but many manufacturers are just now releasing their drivers and providing information about what models will and won’t be supported. Models that don’t initially get a new driver may be on a lower-priority schedule, so check with the manufacturer to see if driver support for your device has either been ruled out or delayed.

If the thought of going through an endless number of manufacturers to find driver information is making you queasy, try using a driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective is certified to work on all versions of Windows and will locate, download and install drivers for you. Better than that, Driver Detective will manage the drivers you have installed, removing old ones and installing new ones as updates are received. It will also make sure that a damaged driver gets replaced before it can cause problems for you or the rest of your system.

Driver Detective has been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times by users around the world, who trust Driver Detective to keep their system in good working order at all times. If managing drivers for your computer hardware isn’t where you’re at, consider using Driver Detective instead.

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