{"id":323,"date":"2009-02-23T00:01:23","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T08:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=323"},"modified":"2013-02-10T21:52:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T04:52:11","slug":"diver-update-overload","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=323","title":{"rendered":"Diver Update Overload"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each and every gizmo and gadget connected to your PC has its own driver, the driver being the software that makes the hardware go. Keeping those drivers up-to-date is important. Or is it?
\n
\nOften times, you can fix a minor PC woe by looking for and installing an updated driver. Sometimes the Windows Update program does this automatically, but often you have to update a driver manually.<\/p>\n

For example, should some game or graphics program report that your PC’s display adapter driver is woefully out-of-date, you can update by installing a newer version of the driver. The steps go generally like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Open the Device Manager.<\/li>\n
  2. Open the display adapter item in the Display Adapters area.<\/li>\n
  3. Click the Driver tab in the display adapter’s Properties dialog box.<\/li>\n
  4. Click the Update Driver button.<\/li>\n
  5. Heed the directions on the screen.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"driver\"<\/p>\n

    Similar steps are followed for updating any driver, such as the network adapter, power management, or other software that may be linked to hardware in your PC that’s not functioning.<\/p>\n

    Recently I got an e-mail from a reader who needed to update his modem driver. He followed the directions I outlined above, but which are more specific in my book Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies<\/em>. Then he got thinking about all the drivers in his PC, so he downloaded a program called Driver Detective<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    I don’t know much about Driver Detective, so I can’t vouch for it, but I can comment on what it does: Apparently Driver Detective checks your hardware and the various device drivers configured for your computer. It then determines which drivers are out-of-date and assists you in updating those drivers. While that sounds like good maintenance, I don’t recommend it.<\/p>\n

    First, one of my troubleshooting mantras is not to fix something that isn’t broken. While I do recommend regular PC maintenance, the keeping all your drivers up-to-date is not maintenance. That’s because just because a driver is old doesn’t mean it has failed. The driver update, in fact, may not even address any issue you’re currently having. If you don’t need the update, don’t bother.<\/p>\n

    Second, and most importantly, changes in a computer cause trouble. Anytime your PC has a problem, the odds are excellent that the problem can instantly be traced back to something you changed, hardware or software. Updating all your PC drivers introduces a massive amount of change your PC may not be able to handle.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line: If you’re having hardware problems, consider updating the driver associated with that hardware. Otherwise, I’d say you were fine keeping your PC’s hardware drivers the way they are for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Each and every gizmo and gadget connected to your PC has its own driver, the driver being the software that makes the hardware go. Keeping those drivers up-to-date is important. Or is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,17],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-pc","tag-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4228,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/4228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}