subject: How to Update Your Drivers and keep Your PC Healthy? [print this page] How to Update Your Drivers and keep Your PC Healthy?
Device drivers are the links that allow communication between your computer's operating system, the devices you have installed, and the application software. Therefore, these drivers are crucial for the good performance of your computer. The way device drivers work is by translating the commands from the operating system so the devices installed in your PC can understand them and respond to the commands.
Your new computer will have certain device drivers supplied with the system installed and you will not need to do anything as these drivers will be installed automatically. When you install devices such as a printer or a router for broadband, the device drivers will be installed in your computer when you do the set up.
Why It's Necessary to Update Drivers
Device manufacturers release new drivers every now and then so in order to improve the performance of your computer it is necessary to update your drivers as new driver versions become available. The main purpose of the new device drivers is to improve performance along with fixing problems you may have and improve the security to avoid problems with viruses or Trojans.
If you have the latest PC drivers, your computer will be able to run better even if you are not experiencing any problems. In contrast, having outdated drivers may lead to conflicts with other functions in your computer and can cause serious errors in your system. The general advice is to update your drivers with frequency.
How to Download Drivers freely?
There are basically two ways to update your drivers. You can download them manually or automatically. If you want to download drivers manually you will have to learn first what devices you already have and their current versions.
In order to find out what devices you have in your system you have to access the Device Manager. You can do this by either going to Control Panel or by right-clicking My Computer, depending on the type of operating system you have installed in your computer.
Once you have done this you have to choose Manage. The Device Manager will list all the types of devices you have in your PC and what you need to do is to open each one of them in order to see the ones you have installed.
To access the Properties of each device you have to right-click each one and then press the Driver tab to check the details that appear for each device driver. Click on the Update Driver button to install and download the latest version of the drivers. Once you have completed this you are going to be prompted to restart your computer, but just do this once you have completed updating all the drivers.
Another way to update drivers is to visit the device manufacturer's website, find the latest version and then follow the instructions to download it. In order to do this you will have to first find out what devices you have. To do this you must go System Tools.
