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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Microsoft says it has not yet finished work on Windows 7 and contrary to rumors on the Internet, the final version of the OS code was not released to manufacturers this week. Microsoft wants to take the time it needs to clear as many last-minute problems as possible before it makes the OS available for manufacturers. Microsoft does not want to repeat the Windows Vista disasters, including incompatible or missing drivers, instability in the core operating system and other issues that ensured that Microsoft Vista was never widely adopted.

RTM Release Expected Within Weeks

The company has said that it will announce the release of the OS to the manufacturers when it happens, and it expects to do that within the next few weeks. The company has already said that it will release the OS to the general public on October 22. The company has concluded the Windows 7 pre-sale and has also said that it will delay reporting that revenue until the fourth quarter.

Driver problems, which plagued Windows Vista from the beginning, are receiving special attention from Microsoft. The company announced last month that vendors that expect to keep their Vista-Certified label will need to certify that their drivers also work with Windows 7. Manufacturers whose drivers are found lacking will have until the official release date of Windows 7 to correct their driver problems.

Users cited the lack of drivers as a major reason for not adopting Vista. Windows 7 is built on the Vista platform, but early evaluations show that Windows 7 is faster and more stable than Windows Vista or Windows XP.

The company has placed a sunset date on the purchase of downgrade rights to Windows XP and will encourage users to move to Windows Vista or Windows 7 rather than remaining with or downgrading to Windows XP. Many corporate users won’t be seeing Windows 7 right away. The majority of corporate licensees say they’re in no hurry to adopt the new platform. While the cost of upgrading is not substantial, most corporate users don’t see an incremental benefit to moving to the new operating system.

Windows 7 will come in three flavors: Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. As with Vista, Microsoft expects home users to drive Windows 7 adoption initially, but the company hopes to woo its corporate/enterprise users within 18 months of the OS’s release.
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