Upcoming Intel Driver Release Will Add Trim Support

Not The First Time Trim Support Has Been Announced

Keep in mind that this isn’t an official announcement for Trim support, and also keep in mind that we were led to believe that Trim support would be introduced in 2009. With that having been said, getting real Trim support could make life a lot less complicated for users who rely on RAID 0 storage schemes for data.

Home users aren’t likely to be impacted at all by the addition of Trim support, but enterprise users will welcome the ability to include SSD in RAID storage arrays. SSDs offer some big advantages over their traditional counterparts in terms of space, cost and reliability, but not being able to make efficient use of space has been a serious downer.

The changes, according to Intel, will be released in the 11.5 version of Intel’s Alpha Rapid Storage Technology (RST) driver. The next release is version 11.0, so Trim support is still on the horizon. The ability to support RAID 0 is the first step toward extending support to RAID 1 and RAID 5 setups.
Windows 7 already supports Trim for SSDs, but that support doesn’t extend to RAID arrays. In other words, Trim works on single SSDs in Windows 7, but not in storage arrays. Intel hasn’t provided a timetable for the release of its version 11.5 RST drivers, but the support will be welcome whenever it comes.

Currently, without Trim support, the performance of SSD arrays over time seriously degrades as storage disks become filled with data. Without the ability to identify disk blocks that can be wiped and re-used, the user effectively has no way to defragment an SSD RAID array. Any user who has worked on a badly fragmented drive will immediately understand the implications of that!

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Catalyst 11.5 Driver for Windows Now Available

Keeping Your Drivers Updated

Knowing when to update a driver for Windows is sometimes as hard as knowing how to do it. When a new driver version doesn’t address issues that a user has experienced, it’s difficult to know whether the driver update is really necessary. I’d like to suggest that, in the absence of a reason NOT to update the driver, downloading and installing a new driver is indeed, a good idea.

Unless you know that you require a specific version of a Windows driver for some reason, updating your Windows driver should be part of your normal maintenance routine. Everyone has heard stories about the “cure” being worse than the disease. This is especially true when it comes to Windows. Updates designed to fix one problem seemingly create another, worse malady that could have been avoided if the update were never installed.

So what’s the incentive to update a Windows driver that isn’t strictly necessary for a particular user? Keeping your drivers updated means that you’re extending the manufacturer support on your equipment. If you have difficulty and contact the manufacturer for technical support, the first thing they’ll tell you is to download and install the current driver.

Subsequent driver versions you may need will require the updated driver anyway. (In most cases, you’ll get all the updates when you download the driver that has the revisions you need.) In the event they don’t, you may need to do more than one driver installation to get yourself squared away.

If downloading and installing drivers doesn’t sound like a blast, you’re right. It’s not. Finding drivers, downloading and installing the correct one, checking for proper operation, removing old drivers… it’s all time consuming and not in a good way.

I recommend Driver Detective because it can take over your driver management chores. When a new driver is made available, Driver Detective will download and install it. It will also disable and remove the old driver, and make a backup copy, in case you want to revert to the old driver, or need a fresh copy of the driver for some reason. Driver Detective will monitor the operation of the driver and replace drivers that have become corrupted or have gone missing.

It’s a time-saving, labor-saving software and it’s definitely worth considering for your computer troubleshooting toolkit.

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Driver Detective Will Manage Your Windows Drivers

What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

We’ve all asked that question when it comes to updating or upgrading a system. The “worst that could happen” is that you foul up a working system. Windows drivers that had been working correctly may stop working, or hardware functions that you value may suddenly go dark.

This sets off a cycle of searching for driver updates for your hardware. If you find updated drivers, you download them, not knowing whether they’ll work or not. Some technicians swear by the method of removing the old Windows driver before installing the updated hardware driver. Others simply install the new driver and keep on rolling.

Setting aside the installation results for a moment, hunting for and downloading drivers is the most time-consuming part of the process. Many technicians still use the time-honored “go to the vendor site” route. This method gives you a little more control over the process than automatic driver updates through Windows do. It also may put you in touch with the correct hardware driver sooner than Windows Update will.

Not all computers are configured to update drivers automatically. Although this is what Microsoft recommends, some users prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, usually after having been burned by a bad update, or by missing out on critical driver updates.

I prefer to use Driver Detective to manage my Windows driver updates. Driver Detective will locate, download, install and back up your Windows drivers. It will also completely remove old driver software from your system files to prevent it from loading or conflicting with new versions of your drivers.

With Driver Detective, you don’t have to hunt for new drivers, or worry that you’ve accidentally downloaded and installed the incorrect version of a driver for your computer. Driver Detective will also monitor the function of your drivers to determine whether the installed drivers are operating properly. If a driver is corrupted or has gone missing, Driver Detective will install a fresh copy so you don’t have to.

Driver Detective works with any version of Windows, which is why I trust Driver Detective to keep Windows hardware drivers up-to-date.

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Windows Driver Support Relies On Third Parties

Products Are Sometimes Semi-Supported

If you’re considering the purchase of new Windows-compatible hardware, check carefully to make sure you have the right kind of driver support for your installation. For awhile, this wasn’t really an issue because most Windows OS installations were 32-bit.

With Windows 7, it’s a bigger deal because 32-bit drivers won’t help a 64-bit installation and vice versa. You need to know what you have, and then determine whether your proposed hardware addition supports your installation. 32-bit support is common among Windows devices. If a manufacturer makes only one type of driver, the 32-bit OS is likely supported.

Less likely to receive support is the 64-bit installation. That’s unfortunate for users who want to move forward with 64-bit devices or have 64-bit installations of Windows 7 (or Windows XP). Microsoft isn’t in much of a position to demand 64-bit support, and overall, the company hasn’t done a very good job of enticing third-party manufacturers to make the effort to produce 64-bit drivers. This creates the situation that many 64-bit users find themselves in; they have devices that are (and aren’t) supported.

Running a 64-bit version of Windows will give you better memory management, better OS security, and a clean break from the older-than-old 16-bit subsystem. Running 64-bit Windows is a necessity if you want to use more than 4 GB of RAM, also not uncommon these days. Certainly, this is true for servers and has been for quite some time, but even certain categories of users want to have more than 4 GB of RAM.

The decision to adopt 64-bit installations isn’t trivial, nor is the work needed to revert to 32-bit. If you have a 64-bit processor (not uncommon these days), there’s no reason to settle for a 32-bit installation, save for the availability of Windows hardware drivers.
In some cases, 32-bit installations aren’t realistic. If you do a lot of photo editing, gaming, animations, renderings, virtualization or computation-intensive work, you’ll want to load up on memory as much as possible, and that means exceeding the 4 GB RAM limit of the 32-bit version of Windows.

For the most part, both users and Microsoft have to do a better job of lobbying third-party manufacturers to support the 64-bit architecture. Currently, Microsoft is in the process of dropping 32-bit support, but slowly. By accelerating the phase-out of 32-bit support, Microsoft could force the issue of 64-bit support on hardware manufacturers that are consistently late to the party.

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Microsoft Plans ARM Version, Drivers For Windows

New Windows Version Will Debut At CES

Several media outlets have reported that Microsoft will debut the new architecture for Windows at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. The ARM processor was developed for mobile devices like tablets and smartphones, and represents a significant shift in Microsoft’s strategy to penetrate the mobile market.

Microsoft has long made available Windows Mobile, but the company is trying to address Apple’s iPad and gain a foothold in the tablet market. Devices that use Intel processors are less desirable in mobile devices because they generally use more power, and therefore reduce battery life.

The Apple iPad uses a customized A4 chip, and will have been on the market for nearly a year by the time Microsoft’s much awaited tablet computer hits the scene. In addition to the ARM version of Windows, Microsoft is expected to unveil its tablet computer at the 2011 CES.

Samsung and Dell will reportedly sell tablet PCs that ship with the Windows operating system. Intel says it will introduce a line of processors designed especially for tablet computers by the end of 2011, which would allow standard versions of Windows to operate smoothly on them.

One area in which Microsoft will have to work to make sure customers remain happy is its ARM drivers. The unavailability of drivers will sorely limit the functionality of the new tablet devices, and buyers are not likely to remain happy for very long in the absence of working drivers.

Tablets are meant to be mobile, but connectivity to other devices, both wireless and wired, is sure to be a significant draw (or turnoff) for consumers who are trying to get the most out of their tablet PCs. In the absence of ARM drivers for Windows, Microsoft can count on another failure in its effort to mount a serious challenge to the players already in the market space, most notably Apple.

If Intel can indeed deliver a line of tablet-ready processors by the end of 2011, the pressure may be off Microsoft and hardware manufacturers to rely on ARM-based processors to challenge Apple. The availability of Intel drivers would mean that consumers can more reliably depend upon existing driver implementations, or working drivers that contain relatively minor modifications. Should Intel fail to deliver, and the porting of Windows drivers for ARM processors take too long or experience significant problems, Microsoft could once again find itself without a dog in the fight.

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Windows Can Find Its Own Drivers, But Do You Want That?

You Can Disable Windows Driver Updates

You can have Windows download and install driver updates, but you may not want that to happen. If you want to handle driver downloading and installation yourself, or you use a driver management program like Driver Detective, you may want to disable the Windows Update driver download function.

Having Windows download and install updates might sound like a good idea, but often the results are less than spectacular. Windows sometimes misses driver updates, especially if the manufacturer hasn’t made the driver available to Microsoft. Windows has also been known to pull the wrong driver, which can cause a whole new set of problems (or not), depending upon how you use your hardware.

Most people (myself included) are a little wary of having Windows download and install software automatically. If you’ve been around computers long enough, you know that having computers make pre-programmed decisions doesn’t always produce positive results. The thought of having Windows perform this particular action on its own all the time is enough to make you a little queasy.

If that describes you, here’s a way to disable the Windows Update feature as it relates to drivers. Setting Windows Update to ignore driver updates will not affect any other action that Windows Update does. It will just put you in charge of monitoring and maintaining your Windows drivers.

Under System Properties, choose Device Installation Settings. Once the window opens, choose “Never install driver software from Windows Update” and choose “Save Changes.” Windows Update will ignore device driver updates in the future. This is the way you want your computer configured if you plan to use a device driver management software package like Driver Detective. With Driver Detective, the software will locate, manage and install all device driver updates when it finds them. It will also back up existing drivers, the registry and will back up any new drivers, so you can easily revert if you need to. With Driver Detective, you’re in better control of your device driver updates and your computer will behave more reliably and remain up-to-date at all times.

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64-Bit Drivers In Demand By Users Moving To Windows 7

What Makes The 64-Bit Version Of Windows Different?

Is there a substantial difference between the performance of a 32-bit system and a 64-bit system? The short answer is yes. The big advantage of the 64-bit system is that it can address more RAM. The more RAM you have available, the faster your computer can work (to a point) and the more simultaneous tasks it can manage (to a point). You may also benefit from having a 64-bit system if you use very computation-intense software, like engineering design software, graphic software, or gaming software.

The downside of running a 64-bit system is that you need to have 64-bit drivers for your hardware. If the manufacturer of a piece of hardware makes a 64-bit version of the driver you need, you’re in luck. Carry on!

On the other hand, if the manufacturer of a piece of hardware has made only a 32-bit driver, you’re pretty much out of luck. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers aren’t interchangeable. They’re not even a little bit compatible, either. 32-bit is 32-bit and 64-bit is 64-bit, and “never the twain shall meet,” so to speak. Microsoft does maintain a compatibility list, which has a comprehensive (though probably not exhaustive) list of 64-bit compatible devices. You can find this list at The Windows 7 Compatibility Center.

The site is divided into two tabs: Software and Hardware. The Software tab contains major functions (e.g., gaming, communications, graphics and printing, etc), so you may have to do a bit of guesswork to figure out how Microsoft views the software you’re looking for. Each major group also has a dropdown menu that activates when you “mouse over” the category heading.
The hardware tab, which is where you’d be looking for device drivers, is divided into major device types. You can also search the site using keywords, and limiting your text searches to hardware or software. You can also filter your search results by system type (64-bit or32-bit), and manufacturer. Microsoft even has some information on devices that are not currently 64-bit compatible, but will have a 64-bit driver in the near future. If your device isn’t on the list and Microsoft has no information about the device’s future 64-bit status, check with the manufacturer to see if they have a 64-bit driver, or if a 64-bit driver is in the works.

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Who Has Time To Manage Windows Drivers?

Manufacturers Don’t Always Come Through

Hardware manufacturers are ultimately responsible for providing hardware drivers, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get much satisfaction from them. Manufacturers are notorious for dropping support for old (and not-so-old) devices, simply by not issuing new drivers for their existing hardware.

It’s frustrating for the user, but this is the manufacturers’ way of prodding users to buy newer hardware, even when the old hardware is working just fine. Windows 7 users may find themselves in a particular bind. They’ve upgraded their OS based on the positive reports from other users, only to discover that their hardware has been deemed “obsolete” by the manufacturer. Likewise, a manufacturer may never have issued a Vista driver based on the users’ “strong preferences for Windows XP.” The unavailability of a Vista driver might just be the best predictor of whether or not your device ends up on the long, slippery slope to oblivion. If a manufacturer hasn’t made a Vista driver, there’s a great chance that you won’t be seeing a Windows 7 driver, either.

You may still be able to find Windows drivers that will talk to your hardware, but the real value of having the right driver is that all of the device’s “built-in functions” will work. Without the correct driver, the device may have limited operating capabilities, or may not work at all.

If you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 and you can’t find a driver for your device inside the OS, the first place to check is with the device manufacturer. Some manufacturers have already identified the devices they support (or plan to support), so verify that your device is on the supported list.

If your device isn’t on the supported list for Windows 7, check the vendor’s site to see if they’ve issued a device driver for Vista. The Vista OS is remarkably compatible with Windows 7 in many areas, including hardware drivers. A Vista driver may work just fine with your Window 7 installation. Failing that, there is a possibility that a Windows XP driver will work. (You’ll need to watch out for 32-bit v 64-bit versions.) The XP driver is far less likely to be a perfect fit, though.

You can always do what I do, which is rely on Driver Detective to locate, download, install and manage drivers. It saves me a great deal of time, which makes Driver Detective worth its weight in gold.

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Finding Windows Drivers Has Never Been Easier

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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The Hunt For Drivers Continues, Even With Windows Vista

Missing Hardware Drivers Can Ruin Your Day
The lack of drivers could certainly ruin your day. Microsoft has received more than an earful of complaints regarding driver availability and driver quality and tried to build in an automated driver update process. The thinking was that whenever the OS updated, Windows would go out and find the right drivers and send them along to your OS.

Good thought. Bad execution. Many Windows users found that Windows was downloading the incorrect drivers, replacing drivers that didn’t need replacement, missing drivers that should have been passed along in the critical updates, and other driver mishaps. They also found out – often too late – that they didn’t know how to configure their computers correctly for the automatic updates to take place, and that the auto updates often slowed the computer down to a crawl at critical times, like shutdown. If that weren’t enough, many hardware vendors never released updated drivers after an OS update, leaving plenty of users sitting in the dust.

The result: users who were still unhappy about the driver situation in Windows on top of the same never-fully-addressed driver situation in Windows. Now, to be sure, the automatic updates work sometimes. Most computer users don’t want a computer that works sometimes, though. I know I don’t. Although computer techs don’t like to admit it, most computer users just want to sit down at their computers and work. They don’t want to worry about driver updates, or OS updates. They don’t even want to worry about their anti-virus updates!

For those users, one of the best solutions – at least in the foreseeable future – is a product like Driver Detective. It’s a top-selling driver manager that automatically finds, loads and checks the status of each driver each time the computer starts. Driver Detective will find missing and broken drivers, apply driver updates and generally keep things flowing smoothly. It’s ideal for the millions of users who just want their computers to work.

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