Device Drivers - What are they?
Device drivers or software drivers are instructions to make the hardware you have on your pc communicate with your operating system. This is the simplest form to state what device drivers are.
Even though windows come with an enormous database of drivers, there are drivers which are "hardware specific". What this means is that even though you have your printer connected to your computer via usb for example, this does not necessarily mean that the printer will function properly.
Have you ever formatted your computer? Have you ever installed a new part and received a little balloon in the bottom right hand corner? If you have, then you know how important installing the correct drivers for hardware is. For those who have not, if you ever do any of the above, make sure that you have the installation cd that comes with the hardware piece and install all the correct drivers.
So which hardware components require a driver? All the below will require drivers to operate at optimal speeds;
* printers
* video adapters
* network cards
* sound cards
* low-bandwidth I/O buses of various sorts (for pointing devices such as mice, keyboards, USB, etc.)
* computer storage devices such as hard disk, CD-ROM and floppy disk buses (ATA, SATA, SCSI)
* image scanners
* digital cameras
Drivers are made by the manufacturers. As with everything, new technology is available, a new understanding of doing something in a particular way is developed, this means that you will have updates to the current versions that you already have installed on your computer. This is normal as the computer world moves forward.
It is important that you keep everything updated. There are drivers that require updating more than others, for example out of the above list; the video card is most likely the most updated out of all of them. Obviously if your computer is quite old, then the updates will be less until the manufacturer stops providing support for the component.
The best example of updates is the windows operating system. This is a little different as the windows are not updating the so called "drivers" but Microsoft is updating the system itself with new versions of files in order to make the system more stable and reliable.
Should you update your drivers?
In one word. YES. With the brief explanation above, you should now understand that as the world moves you should move along with it.
There are two primary methods of updating your device drivers.
First method is obviously to do it yourself manually. As with everything "manual" it would help to know where to find the version information of the drivers already installed and the name of the hardware component as well as the model number. Once this information is collected, click onto the internet, navigate to the manufacturer's website and download the drivers there from usually the support area.
The second method is using software. Software for locating and replacing old, out of date versions of drivers are quite sophisticated these days and may even be more reliable then by doing everything manually. This choice is down to personal preference.
Regardless if doing your driver updates manually or by using software. It is essential that you remember one thing. Device drivers are operating system sensitive. What is meant by that is that you should always update your drivers in accordance to your operating system and more specific the operating system bits. Always double check if you are running a 32bit or 64bit OS.
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