Do you use software to update drivers

I got an email today about something called Drivescanner. Supposedly it will show you what drivers need to be updated on your computer.

1. Have any of you used this software?

2. Do you use any other type of software to update drivers?

I've never updated drivers unless through Windows Update and was wondering how I could check them and update them if needed.

Thanks.

 

some discussion on the subject
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=234975

personally, i don't bother with 3rd party software and update manually

 

Drivers are not security updates. It is rarely necessary to update them if they are stable and doing what they're supposed to do. The one exception is graphics hardware where driver updates sometime mean better performance in games and even then it's good to check it out first. The latest driver is not always the best driver.

 

This works well, is free (2 updates per day for free version) and has a rollback feature if needed but as stated, no need to fix what ain't broke: http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/ Heard good things about Driver Genius too.

 

On my HP notebook, one of the features of the preinstalled HP Support Assistant is the automatic update and installation of drivers, firmwares, BIOS, etc.

 

I use DriverMax; it's the best free driver update tool I've found (requires registration). There's a few basic rules to follow when using it though:

0. Backup all drivers before you do anything. (DriverMax offer this function). If you are using Rollback Rx or similar (quick backup tool), then take a snapshot too.
1. DriverMax provides a rating (user based I believe) for available driver downloads. Generally speaking, only driver downloads that have scored an average of 4.5 or 5 stars from 100+ users are safe. Don't blame DriverMax if you decide to take your chances with a badly rated driver download and your device subsequently doesn't work anymore. (With ~4 stars from 10+ users it might still be worth a shot, but you've been warned.)
2. Always reboot immediately after you've installed a driver (click YES when DriverMax asks to restart).
3. After reboot, check Device Manager to make sure that the driver in question has been updated and is detected correctly. If not, roll it back or uninstall it and reboot again.

Other useful driver tools:

1. Driver Magician Lite and Double Driver are both excellent free tools for making backups of all or selected drivers present in your system. I think you can use them for restores also, but the important thing is to have a backup of those files. For example, I had a non-working scanner one time. When I checked Device Manager, I saw it listed under unknown devices, so I uninstalled the driver (via Device Manager), then upon reconnecting the device, Windows asked for the driver. I chose the 'i have a disk' / 'update from a specific location', and directed Windows to that folder where I had my driver backup. The driver reinstalled fine and the scanner worked again.

2. DriverForge is an excellent tool for installing a large number of drivers from a folder (e.g. a driver backup folder). For example, if you need to format your hard drive and reinstall windows, but you made a backup of your drivers, then DriverForge would make reinstalling those backups easy.

3. Driver Sweeper: Scans your system for unnecessary drivers and removes them (you can of course choose which ones to remove). I've used it only once on one computer, but that time it worked fine. (I assume it's fairly conservative because it only removed 3 drivers even though there are probably a lot more leftover driver crap on this machine that could be removed, albeit at greater risk of problems).

 

Thanks guys. Really appreciate the info.

 

I always update drivers manually unless they come thru in Win Updates. Just easier and safer that way for me.....

 

The Windows/Microsoft Update site has been known to offer improper/incorrect third-party drivers. (That is, drivers offered for non-Microsoft products that are on your machine.)

Just a point of info.