If you have a computer that runs Windows Vista or Windows 7 and you’re having problems with crashes, the famous (or infamous) “Blue Screen Of Death”, or unprovoked restarts, your problem could be caused by a corrupted or malfunctioning Windows driver. here are a few tips to help you get to the bottom of your performance mystery.

Disable Auto-Restarting

Some people just want to get back to business as quickly as possible after a crash, and that’s completely understandable. The random, not-apparently-related-to-anything crash may happen on occasion, as might a brief power interruption. If you’re having persistent problems with crashes or BSODs, you want to get to the bottom of your problem and get it repaired as quickly as possible.

If you get a BSOD, the error message will have some critical information in it, such as the error name, the error stop code, and the driver that encountered the error. Other than the error name, the rest of the information will be in code. Write down the error codes if you can.

If you have Auto-Restart enabled, the computer will automatically restart itself when it encounters an error. This will quickly eliminate your ability to figure out what’s causing your problem. You can disable the auto-restart feature for troubleshooting purposes, and re-enable it later when you’ve corrected the problem.

To disable auto-restart, you’ll probably need to get into your Setup, which you access by pressing F2 at boot time. Within Setup, you can access your advanced boot options, one of which will be disabling auto-restart on system failure. Once this is disabled, your system will not automatically restart after a crash. That will give you time to examine the crash report and collect potentially useful information.

Microsoft has a resource that explains the error codes. You can find this at
the Microsoft Web site.

Don’t overlook the information you get in the error report about the driver. If you suspect a driver problem, remove and reload the suspect driver. As a longer-term solution, consider installing Driver Detective. This software is an excellent tool for managing Windows hardware drivers. In addition to downloading and installing driver updates automatically, it can detect driver problems and replace a malfunctioning driver before it seriously affects your computer performance.

Driver Detective has been downloaded and installed more than one million times by satisfied users. Download a copy today and eliminate troublesome Windows driver problems.

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If you work on a Windows PC, you’ve had the experience of having a system crash. You’ve probably also experienced getting handed a set of incomprehensible numbers that “explain” what happened to crash your system. Third-party Windows drivers cause about 70% of all system crashes these days. Windows – as in the code that Microsoft produces – is far more stable today than it has ever been, so knowing what has caused a crash is a big step toward making sure a crash doesn’t re-occur.

Getting to the bottom of the numbers

No one, including even the most hard-core tech geek, memorizes crash codes, but there is a way to find out what these modern-day hieroglyphics mean. I suppose the whole issue of deciphering a crash code raises the question: “Why not just produce the error message instead of a string of numbers?” The short answer is that the crash code is what’s stored in the computer’s memory. Deciphering the little nugget of information may exceed the capability of a crashed computer.

Enter ErrMsg. This is a little application that deciphers a crash code and spells out the results in plain English – or at least English that’s as plain as possible. After reading the interpretation, you still may not be able to decipher what caused your crash, but you’ll at least be dealing with words and not numbers!

ErrMsg is free and will translate error codes from any version of Windows, and works on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Knowing what you’re up against is just the first step in fixing the problem, but ErrMsg can shine a light on the actions that are most likely to resolve your crash problems.

For example, ErrMsg might indicate a problem with a file structure, a file pointer or an entire file. These problems might lead you to run the built-in CheckDisk utility to check for and fix file system errors. On other hand, an error message might lead you to suspect a driver or hardware problem. In this case, you might try to remove and re-install the correct Windows hardware driver to see if that helps. You may also check the hardware configuration to make sure the computer recognizes and responds to your peripheral hardware correctly.

ErrMsg isn’t the world’s most accurate troubleshooting tool, but it can point you in the right direction when you have no idea where to go! You can also reduce the potential for problems among your Windows drivers by using a driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective downloads, installs, monitors and maintains all of your system drivers, so you don’t have to.

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When you’re working with a Windows computer, outdated Windows drivers can cause a host of problems you’re not expecting. Common problems include device failures, device features that don’t work correctly or reliably, devices that “hang” or even system crashes when the computer attempts to access the device or certain device functions. The system can also slow down to a crawl while it communicates (or attempts to communicate) with a non-responsive device.

Always Keep Updated Drivers

To avoid driver problems, one standard piece of advice is to keep your drivers updated. Unfortunately, driver updates can cause as many problems as they can solve! When you’re trying to troubleshoot driver problems, it helps to keep in mind the things that have changed recently on the computer.

If you’ve recently done a system update, installed a service pack or made configuration changes to your system the change could be the source of your driver problem. The old driver may not get along with the new system software, so you may need to look for a new driver or reinstall the old driver to see if that clears up the problem.

If you didn’t do any recent manual system updates (and Windows didn’t install any updates automatically), you may have installed something else that conflicts with your existing driver, or that overwrote a library your driver needs. Try reinstalling the old driver. If that doesn’t work, try reverting to the old setup or removing the newly installed item.

If you recently installed a new driver, but didn’t install any system updates, you may have inadvertently updated your driver without updating the system. In this case, update the system, then re-install the new driver to see if you get better performance. Remember to read carefully any information that comes along with driver updates. You may find that a driver update either doesn’t apply to your system or may conflict with other installed items, applications or drivers.

If you’ve done nothing at all to your system, your driver may have been corrupted or accidentally got thrown away. In this case, reinstall the existing driver and see if your problems clear up.

If you spend a lot of time trying to solve driver issues, you may want to install a driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective monitors and maintains all of your Windows drivers, installs the proper updates, backs up your drivers and your registry and reinstalls drivers that have been corrupted or have gone missing. Using a driver management program like Driver Detective may turn out to be a lot easier than doing driver maintenance manually!

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If you think you may be experiencing Windows driver problems and you want to do a little troubleshooting, Microsoft offers a built-in tool that may be able to help. The Driver Verifier is designed to help identify driver problems, one cause of instability in Windows installations.

Driver Problems Can Cause Crashes

Driver problems can cause a lot of different symptoms, which is one reason they can be so difficult to troubleshoot. Aside from performance problems and obvious hardware malfunctions, driver problems can also cause seemingly spontaneous system crashes.

Since Server 2003/Windows XP, Microsoft has included the Driver Verifier tool to help spot malfunctioning device drivers. Microsoft doesn’t write device drivers; for the most part, that is left up to the device manufacturer. A poorly written driver, however, can cause significant problems for the Windows OS. Since Microsoft doesn’t have much control over the driver itself, it has provided tools that users can access to identify these misbehaving drivers quickly. Verifier may not be able to spot all driver problems, but it’s a good place to start when trouble arises.

Driver Verifier is installed with all Windows installations, however, it does not run automatically. The application itself is stored in the System32 folder and can run either as a command line app or with its graphical user interface. To run Driver Verifier, simply type verifier.exe in the Run box. You’ll need to restart your computer right away, so make sure all programs and documents you want to keep are saved and closed before you start working.

Driver Verifier’s status page will tell you the status of all installed drivers. Windows Driver Verifier will tell you whether your drivers are loaded, unloaded or not loaded. The “loaded” status is obvious. It means that the driver is loaded and appears to be operating. The “unloaded” status means that the driver was loaded at restart, but is currently unloaded. (It has been disabled or taken out of memory.) “Not loaded” means that the driver didn’t load at all when you rebooted your computer. Pay special attention to the “not loaded” drivers. The “not loaded” status may point to a driver has been corrupted or is incorrectly configured. If you see a “not loaded” status attached to a driver you think should have loaded, start your troubleshooting at this point.

Driver Verifier has other functions that are more useful for developers who may be doing system testing or debugging. To avoid clouding your basic troubleshooting efforts, I will leave these functions for another post.

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