If you notice that you’re suddenly having problems with your computer, especially when you connect with a piece of hardware that’s attached to your computer, you could be experiencing a Windows driver problem.

Driver Problems Come In Many Shapes And Sizes

Drivers are files, so they’re subject to the same limitations that other files are. They can get corrupted, misplaced or deleted. When this happens, the computer is unable to access the related hardware properly. A corrupted driver may partially function, which will cause your hardware (or your computer) to behave erratically when you try to use the device. In other cases, the corrupted driver won’t work at all, meaning that you have no access to your device.

Driver problems can also occur when you install system updates that overwrite a portion of the driver software, or that don’t interact properly with your old driver. In this case, the driver usually stops functioning altogether. Attempts to access the driver can cause the computer to freeze or crash.

Last but not least, manufacturers may issue new drivers to correct problems with an existing driver, enable new functions, or improve compatibility with the operating system. You may not notice any behavior problems with your device or computer, but you won’t have the benefit of the updates, either.

In the distant past, users were responsible for locating, downloading and installing the correct driver for their hardware. Windows came with a few “generic” drivers for required hardware like displays, mice and keyboards. More recently, Windows has been redesigned to locate and install driver updates, and comes with a large collection of drivers.

Unfortunately, these additions don’t reduce the amount of time it takes to do driver maintenance. Sometimes, Windows doesn’t have the updated driver, or doesn’t know about it. Windows also occasionally downloads and installs the wrong driver for your hardware. (This can cause a number of problems for you, including functions that don’t work or devices that are inaccessible.)

When this happens, you can plan to spend extra time troubleshooting the problem, locating the correct driver, uninstalling the wrong driver, and installing the correct driver. Doing driver maintenance is an unpleasant prospect, to say the least.

I have turned all of my driver maintenance tasks over to Driver Detective. Driver Detective locates, downloads, installs and backs up the correct driver for your device. Driver Detective also monitors the operation of your drivers and replaces drivers that have gotten corrupted or gone missing. Once Driver Detective is configured, you don’t have to do anything except enjoy working on a well-maintained computer.

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Looking for Windows drivers can be about as fun as looking for your car keys when you’re late for work. It can also seem a lot like searching the desert for water. If you’re lucky, you might find it, and if you fail, you may be in big trouble.

Drivers Abound, Just Not Always In The Right Places

Windows drivers are available by the millions. That’s right; over time, there have been literally millions of hardware drivers written for the Windows operating system. That’s because there have been millions of peripherals designed to work with windows. Everything, from printers to keyboards to specialized hardware, requires a driver to allow the hardware to communicate with the computer.

Drivers don’t just happen and Microsoft isn’t responsible for writing drivers; hardware manufacturers are. When hardware manufacturers don’t write updated drivers, they’re essentially walking away from one of their products. Without a driver, the hardware won’t work properly, if at all. Older drivers might suffice, but chances are good that when an operating system changes radically – like the difference between Windows XP and Windows 7 is – there’s a good bet that a new driver is in order.

There’s no income involved for the manufacturer in writing a new driver for old hardware. Drivers are given away at no cost. Ongoing driver support represents the commitment a company makes to a hardware product, as well as an acknowledgment by the company that hardware can function admirably well past the manufacturer’s desire to continue supporting it.

Many peripheral manufacturers took a flyer on writing drivers for Vista, largely because Vista wasn’t a big commercial success. That approach is now causing problems for consumers who want to upgrade to Windows 7, and who still want to use their older hardware. Many manufacturers haven’t done the legwork needed to write a Vista driver, and the absence of a Vista driver significantly lessens the chance that a Windows 7 driver will be forthcoming.

For its part, Microsoft attempted to head off this problem by including a virtualization mode in Windows 7 that will enable the computer to run Windows XP. In virtual XP mode, the old XP drivers will still work. Unfortunately, the computer’s BIOS must support virtualization – a trick that many aging computers don’t.

If you’ve got an older piece of hardware that you don’t want to – or can’t – replace, and your computer can run Windows XP virtually, you can still access your older hardware and enjoy the benefits of Windows 7. (Just not simultaneously.)

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There’s nothing quite like the start of a New Year to help you focus on how you can do things a little differently in the coming months. As people take on more responsibilities at work and have less free time, finding ways to save time without cutting corners is important. For busy people, I recommend that they install and use Driver Detective to help keep their computer systems running right.

Driver Detective Takes The Work Out Of Driver Management

I was reading about the cost of printer ink not too long ago, and it seems that no one knows exactly how much ink a cartridge contains or how many pages it will print. In tracking down more information on printer ink cartridges, I ran across a couple of articles on how to find drivers for your printers once you’ve switched to Windows 7.

After reading the articles, my only thought was that the tips the author suggested were rather time-intensive. If a person has enough time to visit the manufacturer’s Web site, locate the correct driver, download it, install it and then verify that the printer operates correctly, it’s one thing. Most people I know don’t have time to do this, or worse, repeat this step for every hardware device attached to their computer. Even worse, this method will need to be repeated periodically to check for driver updates – a notorious consequence of OS patches.

Who has time for that? I know I don’t and I make my living working on computers. What about the people who simply use computers or have them in their homes? I’m a big fan of doing things once – the right way. It saves time, money and aggravation. In the case of locating new drivers for your computer, “doing something the right way” means finding a program that will locate drivers for you – preferably with a high degree of accuracy. Even better, it means finding a program that locates, downloads and installs the correct driver, knows when updates occur, automatically fetches all updates and knows when an installed driver has been damaged or deleted.

Driver Detective is the best of the driver management software programs I’ve found. Windows comes with a load of drivers and can even find new driver updates if it’s properly configured. Unfortunately, Windows sometimes makes mistakes and loads the wrong driver. Driver Detective, on the other hand, has a database of millions of drivers and can easily locate the correct driver for your exact hardware configuration.

In terms of saving time, there’s nothing that beats Driver Detective when it comes to driver management. Unless, of course, you like spending a lot of time looking for drivers…

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If you’ve been using Windows computers for awhile, you know that one of the things you need to do regularly is install updated Windows drivers. You may wonder why your drivers require updating, especially if things are working as they should be. Hardware manufacturers update their drivers primarily for two or three reasons.

Looking Out For Updated Drivers

Updated drivers may be required if Microsoft updates its operating system. I’m not talking about the major upgrades, although updated drivers are almost certainly a by-product of those. I’m talking about the patches that Microsoft puts out now and again. Sometimes, in fixing one thing, the code for an existing driver needs to be rewritten or changed. You may find that after installing an update, a certain piece of hardware no longer works properly. An updated driver may take care of the problem.

Sometimes, security “holes” are discovered that would allow a remote user to take advantage of your computer, install malware or infect your computer with a virus. Updating the driver may take care of a security hole, or make your peripheral devices less vulnerable to this type of attack.

Third, software drivers from the manufacturer sometimes contain errors that the manufacturer wants to correct. In this case, the manufacturer will put out an updated driver to replace an existing one.

Occasionally, the manufacturer wants to enable a new feature or extend an existing feature often thanks to OS updates. A new driver will help an updated computer interact with the peripheral device.

The problem with updated drivers is that most manufacturers don’t announce when they’re going to be released. The average user may not know that an updated driver is available and may only go looking for updated drivers if a problem arises. Windows has been able to detect and download drivers, but many users don’t have their computers configured properly to install new driver updates. In addition, Windows sometimes misidentifies the driver that’s needed. From experience I can say that downloading and installing the wrong driver can be as bad as having no driver at all.
Windows may catch updates, but it won’t catch a misbehaving or corrupted driver, either.

Driver Detective is a driver management program that identifies, downloads, installs and monitors your Windows drivers. If a new driver becomes available, or if your existing installed driver gets corrupted or accidentally removed, Driver Detective will reinstall a fresh copy of the driver seamlessly. I recommend Driver Detective because it does such a good job of maintaining an up-to-date driver library.

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