Updating Your Windows 7 or Vista Driver

A driver is a program that allows communication between your computer and a hardware (such as a sound card, video adapter, network adapter, printer or scanner), allowing the tool to work correctly together with your computer. That said, if a necessary driver is absent, the tool which driver is missing wouldn't work properly or basically wouldn't work at all. Installing a driver can be an awkward task for novice computer users. Thus, to assist individuals who have troubles installing or updating drivers for their computer, we've listed several simple ways to put in or update a driver in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.


Technique One: Update driver through Tool Manager
This is probably the most straightforward way to update a driver, but not all drivers can be found by this technique.


Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Process Maintenance -> Tool Manager. From there you can see a list of all devices currently connected to your computer. Select and right-click the tool you need to update the driver for, and then click on Update Driver Application. You will be given options to put in a driver:






Browse my computer for driver application: Select this option only when you have an existing driver installer on your computer. A driver CD usually comes along with the tool you bought. In case you have the driver CD, insert the CD in to your CD-ROM and then browse to your CD by hand by this option.


Search automatically for updated driver application: This option allows Windows to search your computer or the net for the most appropriate driver application for your tool automatically. As we've said before, some drivers cannot be found by this option, and if this happen to you, you need to proceed to the second option or Technique three.


Technique Two: Fully automated drivers detection and installation
If both technique one and two don't work for you, you ought to give a try on Driver Robot. Driver Robot is a widely known utility that offers to scan your PC for incorrect and out-of-date drivers, and automatically download the latest drivers for your computer. Driver Robot has the industry's best hardware detection. It correctly identifies 100% of all consumer hardware devices. If it's in your computer, Driver Robot can see it. With its ideal hardware scan, Driver Robot ensures you always get the right driver.


Technique Three: By hand search for the driver on the Web
This is the best and the most common technique power users used to put in or update a driver. For sure, the most appropriate drivers are those that you can download directly from the tool manufacturer's web-site itself. All you need to do is to check on the brand and the model of the hardware you need to put in the driver for, and then take these as your keywords to search on Google. For example, in case you have a Nvidia Geforce 9800GTS video card, search on google using these keywords: "Nvidia Geforce 9800GTS driver download".