Windows 7: Any worthwhile driver installer applications? Recommendations?

Hello and thanks for reading.

I'm one of those people who hates the idea of not having the latest drivers (yes, this means even if the hardware is working perfectly). While I've been installing my own drivers from the manufacturer sites for years, I wouldn't mind having a program that reliably informed me whether all of my drivers are up-to-date or not, and would grab what I need when the answer is "not" (and even paying a few bucks for it).

I just built a new Win 7 64 machine, so this would come in handy. So, does anyone make a driver installer application that worth the money? Endorsements or recommendations?

I'm skeptical especially because I just happened to download the "free" version of Driver Agent, and while it did identify a number of older drivers I was able to update from the manufacturer, it also continues to claim that I have several drivers that are outdated that the manufacturer clearly says are current.

Interested to hear your experience and/or input,

ELB

MrELB ,If the original manufacturer has not updated the driver , How can these so called driver "finders" get a better driver ?

What you described Driver Agent doing is pretty much what you can expect from any driver updater program. That and most of the drivers that programs like that "find" are system drivers that are native to Windows and only get updated directly from Microsoft.

Better off to just keep doing it as you and getting them from the hardware manufacturer.

I tried several driver update apps a while back, and not only did NONE of them find any "newer" drivers than I already had in place (despite the fact that they ALL said my drivers were out of date!), in some cases, not only did they try to install drivers that were actually OLDER than what I had, in other cases, they tried to install the WRONG drivers.

As already said, if the hardware providers don't have any newer drivers, these services are NOT going be able to magically find them for you.

Besides, if they were really "legit", they would let you try out a couple of driver downloads FOR FREE -- to confirm that what you are getting is really a "newer" version of the drivers.

Excellent points all around. Shame that it remains such a manual process. It's not that going to the original equipment manufacturers for the drivers is so difficult, it's more that you rarely know when to look. A one-button operation you could hit once every several weeks or per month to let you know if anything new had arrived for any of your drivers would be nice indeed.

Furthermore, I'm sure people here are far more experienced than me — while I have no trouble identifying most of my drivers/hardware, there's some that can be elusive, like all those controllers on your motherboard, etc. In short, I always end up having to load drivers for stuff I never even knew I had. A little disconcerting.

Thanks.

- ELB

Hi there
one method that DOES work and is free is to use stuff from Driverpacks. Read the documentation first as it's fiddly but DOES work.

I've used this system as well to "Backport" XP to some Netbooks --- things like SATA drivers were never part of XP SP3 -- they came later and you can't add these at system install time anymore via pressing F6 to load from Floppy Disk -- I haven't seen these for Donkeys years !!.

What you essentially do is "Slipstream" these drivers into the Windows install disk. Works fine for Windows 7 too.

News | DriverPacks.net

Look also at the Forum in the link but READ THE DOCUMENTATION. Once you get the hang of it it's very easy to do.

Don't ever use those other sites that offer to find stuff for you and then sucker you in to PAYING to download the stuff which should be FREE anyway.

Cheers
jimbo

do all the driver update software work the same
so which one is the cheapest & does it have a lifetime update
or need to pay every year ?

Thanks

Thanks for this. Not sure exactly what you're referencing, but then that's the point, isn't it? So, I'll look into it and see. Curious. Again, thank you.

I've no idea, which is why I asked here. Since the unanimous consensus is that these services are a rip-off and hardly foolproof, I doubt you're going to get the details you requested.

Hi there
Try this

driverpacksolution - DriverPack Solution - Google Project Hosting

Some of it is in Russian -- however it DOES work for Windows 7 and I haven't had any "Nasties" such as viruses etc.

Note it's a 2GB download --but if you have a decent cable / broadband connection --works fine. I'm at 40 MB/s which works great.

Those on slow "dinosaur" speeds -- this method probably isn't for you unless you can download at a fast connection Internet Cafe or similar.

Works fine for Windows 7 -- found my Sony Vaio memory stick -- this machine as a dual slot --SD and memory stick -- could never get the memory stick to work on Retail Windows 7 -- the rubbish shop supplied Home Premium with all the trial and bloatware worked but I always get rid of all this type of junk and replace with proper retail version.

Cheers
jimbo