Updating Device Drivers

In the previous section of this tutorial, we made reference to the device drivers required by the installation of a new hardware device – in that case, an expansion card (specifically, the graphics card).

Because device drivers are required by many hardware components in your computer, it’s important to understand what purpose they serve and what you need to do to keep them up to date.

A device driver is a computer program that is designed to interface with specific hardware devices, and to facilitate communications between that device and the operating system on your computer.

Thus, device drivers are both hardware- and operating system-specific. When you connect a particular device to your computer – a printer, for example – the operating system of your computer must understand how to communicate with that specific hardware device. Device drivers facilitate this communications process.

Some of the required device drivers are supplied by the operating system and are installed when the OS is first installed. Other device drivers are supplied by the manufacturer of the particular hardware device, and are installed when that device is installed.

When the operating system is installed, the process of installing device drivers for the motherboard, keyboard, and other devices is transparent. However, when installing device drivers for other types of hardware (e.g., graphic cards, network cards, sound cards, printers, scanners, CD ROM and DVD drivers, and digital cameras), user intervention is required.

In most cases, the hardware device needs to be installed or connected to the computer before the device drivers are installed. We followed that guideline in the previous section when we stepped through the installation of a graphics card: first we installed the hardware, then the device drivers.

There are a few exceptions to this, however, such as a digital camera using a USB port for downloading images to the computer. In this case, the software is usually installed on the computer before the camera is plugged in to the USB port. Be sure to check your documentation to learn what to do first.

Not only do the various hardware devices require their own specific drivers, but the exact driver required for that device varies according to the operating system that is installed on your computer. Thus, the driver required for your particular printer will vary depending upon whether you are running Windows XP or Windows Vista, for example.

Over time, drivers are often developed that are compatible with multiple operating systems, but device driver development can lag behind other industry developments, such as the introduction of a new operating system (e.g., Windows Vista). As of this writing, if you’re using Vista, you will need to download the device drivers required by your hardware directly from the manufacturer’s web site.

However, device drivers are also continually updated by the manufacturer (to eliminate any bugs, expand compatibility, and so forth). For this reason, it is generally recommended that you download the drivers from the manufacturer’s web site rather than install from the CD that accompanies your hardware.

Let’s use the HP OfficeJet d145 All In One printer as an example of the process of locating and downloading the appropriate driver for your system (let’s assume you’re using Windows XP).

  1. Go to http://www.hp.com/
  2. Click on the ‘Software and Driver Downloads’ link
  3. Type in your product name/model number in the appropriate box and click the search button (or use the Automatic Detection feature)
  4. Select your operating system
  5. Click on the link for your driver package and download it to a known location on your hard drive
  6. Double click the name of the file you’ve downloaded to begin the installation process and follow the prompts of the installation wizard

It’s interesting to note that if you had selected Windows Vista rather than Windows XP, you’d discover that the required driver is already incorporated into your Vista OS, and there is no need to download anything further.

As you have probably experienced, software and hardware technologies within the computer industry are developed along different timelines. So that printer that you purchased several years ago may have worked just fine under Windows XP, but may not be supported under the Windows Vista operating system.

While OS developers work to ensure a reasonable period of backward compatibility, it’s impossible to continue to support the myriad of devices and models available.

So when and why should you update your device drivers? Here’s a quick guide:

  1. Whenever you add new hardware, install the latest version of the device driver available.
  2. If you upgrade your operating system, you’ll need to upgrade your hardware device drivers as well. This process may occur automatically during the installation of your new OS (as the hardware is scanned), but you’ll have to manually update any drivers that were not automatically updated.
  3. If you’re experiencing any problems or compatibility issues with your hardware device, check to see if there is an updated driver available.

To easily update the drivers on your computer, open up Device Manager (as described in the Expansion Card section of this tutorial), double click on the device whose driver you wish to update, select the Driver tab, and click on the Update Driver button.

If you’re looking for an older driver and you’re not able to find it at the manufacturer’s website (older, or legacy, drivers, are not always supported), an excellent online resource to search for the driver you’re looking for is the top-rated http://www.driverguide.com/ . Their database of drivers is one of the most comprehensive on the web.