Utilities – What is it all about?
Each download is sorted alphabetically by manufacturer/developer. Typically a driver can be used on a fresh installation of Windows, a new piece of hardware or simply to update an existing driver already on your system. Each download is the official release, but take care to ensure you find out the brand of hardware on your system. Some companies develop a product and then sell it to a number of manufacturers, from PC vendors (such as HP, Acer, Dell) to component resellers. These are commonly referred to as OEM; Original Equipment Manufacturers. For more details, see the listing below which includes information such as download size, compatible Windows systems (including Windows 7) and other special instructions needed for the driver download.
What should you be considering when you download a driver?
The key to keeping all your hardware operating effectively is to ensure you have downloaded the most recent drivers on your computer. It is also important to back up the driver in case the installation of a newer version does something unexpected to the computer.
The simplest option for updating drivers
Keep in mind that a typical installation of Windows requires hundreds of drivers and that these drivers are updated when the developer determines that it is necessary – the time between releases could be days, months or years. If you have better things to do then to regularly check for drivers, download them, back up the old ones and repeat every week, there is a simple solution. Our preferred option is to use a driver scanner, download and backup tool. In our testing, the easiest one to use is DriverScanner. It can instantly run a free scan to tell you what driver you system needs to download.
