If you’re considering upgrading your Windows operating system to Windows 7, and you’re not already a Windows Vista user, you’ll be in for a few surprises – mostly pleasant. Overall, the upgrade process from Vista is easy, but if you skipped Vista and are now trying to move to Windows 7, the process of upgrading will take longer and require more technical skills, especially in the area of Windows drivers.

XP Has No Direct Upgrade Path

If you’re running Windows XP or an earlier version of the operating system, there is no direct upgrade path to Windows 7. That means you’ll need to do a “clean installation.” That involves backing up your data and reinstalling your applications. While this might seem like a daunting task, it will give you the opportunity to evaluate all of the software in your current load. My advice? If you don’t need it, don’t reload it.

For your hardware, you’ll need to do a little research to determine whether your manufacturer has released and updated driver. If so, Windows 7 will often (but not always) install it for you. In itself, this is a time-saver. Dealing with old or missing drivers can be exceptionally time-consuming. Even with the right drivers, things don’t always go smoothly.

The installation process has a few hitches in it, most noticeably one that places the computer in an infinite mid-installation rebooting loop under certain circumstances. This isn’t the universal experience by any means. I upgraded my computer at home (running Vista) in just a few hours with no real issues. Getting the remaining drivers installed and configured, which would have taken an additional evening, was handled by Driver Detective.

I always recommend driver management software. Driver Detective, which has been downloaded and installed by more than a million users, locates, downloads and installs updated drivers for any computer system. After installing the correct drivers, Driver Detective watches over the computer’s drivers, ready to replace old, outdated, corrupted or missing drivers instantly without additional assistance from you.

Finding and installing drivers is among the least-rewarding tasks associated with computer maintenance. Driver updates often sneak up on you, following upgrades and patches. If you don’t have the time to search for updated drivers for your computer, I recommend that you consider letting Driver Detective do the heavy lifting for you.

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It seems like no matter who I talk to, their workload is increasing. Cutbacks at companies mean that people have to take on more responsibilities. This leaves them with less time to manage their existing responsibilities and less free time to take care of computer problems like Windows driver problems at home.

Driver Management Has Never Been Easier

As any technician – they’ll tell you that one area in which they spend a lot of (mostly unproductive time) is in the area of driver management for Windows computers. Whether they’re dealing with an update that “breaks” a previously working driver, or a driver gets corrupted or lost, dealing with drivers can be an unpleasant task.

Finding the right driver is just one leg of the journey for a PC technician. Sometimes manufacturers make a number of different versions of a driver, so knowing what you need is the first place to start. Simply finding the right driver doesn’t always get you out of the woods. Installing a new driver can break another driver. You can also find out that what you thought was the right driver isn’t the right one at all. Sometimes new drivers have bugs in them that prevent them from working properly and occasionally, even though a driver is the right one and is installed and working properly, it becomes corrupted, gets uninstalled or accidentally deleted.

All of these things add up to hardware problems. Unfortunately, the driver isn’t always the first suspect. Technicians can spend hours diagnosing and correcting a driver problem. It can get worse when a user tries to do his own diagnosis and repair and ends up creating more problems or making the existing problem worse.

What’s the solution? For me, I always recommend using a driver management software package like Driver Detective. Driver Detective is designed to identify and download the drivers needed for the system it monitors. Anytime a driver stops working, is updated or gets corrupted, Driver Detective steps in to remove the old driver or replace it with a fresh, working copy of the correct driver.

Driver Detective can search through millions of known drivers to find the exact one your system needs. Once the new driver is installed, Driver Detective continues to work, monitoring the operation of your driver. Should anything happen to the driver that affects its performance, Driver Detective has you covered, automatically!

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Did Santa bring you a new computer for the holidays? If so, you’re in luck! Now is the best time to set yourself up with good maintenance habits that can help you keep the drivers for your new computer operating as it should as time goes on.

Configure Your Computer Now

Especially if your new computer came with Windows 7 installed, you’ll notice that you’ll receive a bevy of updates and patches over the coming months. In addition to patches designed to keep the operating system working safely, many manufacturers will be updating Windows drivers for the hardware they support, and that may be installed on your computer, or attached by you at a later date.

Because many manufacturers are just bringing their updated Windows 7 drivers to market, you may find that the older piece of hardware you really want to keep requires an updated driver to work. If the driver for your hardware wasn’t submitted to Microsoft, Windows may not be aware of it. Check the manufacturer’s Web site for the latest information on the drivers your hardware requires.

In addition to providing information about hardware the manufacturer will support, many manufacturers are identifying older hardware models that they will not support, or whose support will be limited. It’s a good idea to keep yourself up-to-date on the status of support for older hardware. This may save you some anguish in the future and help you avoid an unpleasant surprise. It may also prompt you to start looking for replacement hardware, should it come to that.

One good maintenance habit to get into when it comes to your hardware drivers is to set yourself up with a good driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective has been downloaded millions of times and can track literally millions of drivers for updates. Driver Detective can be invaluable when it comes to managing your drivers. Not only does Driver Detective identify your drivers, it locates them, installs them and monitors them for updates and for proper operation.

If one of your drivers fails, becomes corrupted or requires an update, Driver Detective will locate the correct driver and install it on your computer as soon as the driver is available. You no longer have to check the manufacturer’s Web site for each piece of hardware you own. Driver Detective also keeps a backup of your drivers in case your installed driver becomes damaged or gets deleted accidentally. Ultimately, that means no more wasted time struggling with drivers that don’t work and more productive computer time for you!

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If you’ve spent a lot of time in front of your computer, you may also find yourself spending a lot of time looking for Windows drivers for your computer hardware. One of the downsides of using a PC is that hardware is manufactured by many different companies. These manufacturers don’t use the same software drivers to allow your computer to communicate with the device. In fact, each device has a unique driver.

Some devices made by a company may share a driver. Printers are good examples of that. A printer company may have multiple printers that use the same version or similar versions of a driver. On the other hand, even minor differences among the features of similar devices can require a new driver.

The Hunt For Windows Drivers,/h3>
Windows has been on the market for a long time, and to date, there are literally millions of device drivers out there. Some devices are no longer supported by a manufacturer. When a manufacturer cancels support for a device, it means they will no longer write a driver or keep its driver updated. This can put the user in a bad position because one change or update to the operating system could render your device useless.

This can be frustrating to users because it sometimes requires them to replace hardware that is mechanically sound but no longer has a working software driver. Without the driver, the device may be as useless as it would be if you dropped it down a flight of stairs.

Finding drivers can be difficult, too. Each OS upgrade may require you to visit the support sites for each piece of hardware attached to your computer, download a new driver and install it. Occasionally, installing one driver will interfere with another driver, and your computer (over time) can accumulate quite the collection of outdated drivers.

That’s why I recommend that users install a driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective does all of the heavy lifting for you. It identifies the exact drivers your computer needs, downloads them, installs them and monitors them for you. Should anything happen to one of your drivers, or should it be updated by the manufacturer, you’ll always have the latest drivers along with a backup copy on your computer. Driver Detective takes the work out of managing updates for your computer hardware, and having the correct, updated drivers installed on your computer can mean less downtime for you!

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