Windows 7 Drivers Information, Tips and Techniques

Hey- Rick here,

And you’re reading my uncensored review of what I really thought about Driver Robot.  Note that this is an independent review, though, so if you’re looking for Driver Robot’s official website then click here.

Why am I writing this?  Well, when I was dealing with driver updates for Windows 7, I did some research and ran across this product that automated the whole process for me, so I thought I’d share what I found, since I didn’t find many real reviews around.

But be warned, I’ll be going into both the good and bad points in this review, so if that’s something you might not want to hear, then you may as well leave now (I’m a big believer in unbiased reviews).  So here goes…

First, the facts about the product.  Driver Robot is a software tool that automates:

• Identifying which drivers are on your Windows 7 system
• Determining which of your drivers are up-to-date and which ones need updating, with a single button click
• Locating the latest and best drivers for your particular hardware, using its driver database of over 100,000 drivers
• Downloading all the drivers that need to be updated, with a single button click
• Assisting somewhat with the actual driver installation
• Periodically scanning your system and letting you know about critical driver updates (similar to how Windows and anti-virus systems notify you when a newer version of software updates is available)

I found the product very simple to download and install initially.  Click here to download it and give it a try (it’s free to scan your system and see the state of your Windows 7 drivers).

When you first run Driver Robot, you get a single, simple page that looks like this:

As you can see, it’s dead-stick simple.  You simply press the “START SCAN” button and it scans your PC drivers.

When the scan is finished (about 15 to 20 seconds on my particular system), it then shows you what it has found:

As you can see here, it found 7 new drivers for my Windows 7 system.  It creates a list of all drivers on your system, along with the status of each one; out of date, update-to-date or built-in system drivers (that belong to Windows itself).

You then simply press the “GET DRIVERS” button, and the next screen appears:

At this point, each set of related drivers that need updating are shown.  You simply click on the “Start” button (where the little red arrow is pointing above) and this begins the Windows 7 driver download process.

I have to say at this point, this is as easy as locating and downloading the right drivers can possibly be.  Click here to see how easy it is for yourself.

The entire process to this point has taken about one minute!  For this, Driver Robot scores very high points as the simplest, fastest way to identify the drivers that are out of date, find the correct driver and enable the user to download it at the touch of a button.

After the driver is downloaded (time depends on size of driver file, usually a couple of minutes or less), it is ready to install, as shown here:

At this point, Driver Robot has downloaded the driver(s) and they’re ready to install.  To begin the driver install process, you click on the “Install” button (another red arrow above).

So far, so good.  Driver Robot has automated about as much of the process as it can.  Installing the drivers from this point forward is fairly straightforward.  When you click on the Install button, the downloaded driver files are opened up in a compressed file (e.g., WinZip) program.  You can then “extract” the files into a folder on your PC, where you then install the drivers (using the procedures I outlined in an earlier post).

I really wish the driver installation process could be more automated than this, but drivers are so diverse and different, there’s no easy way to streamline the process completely.  This is the biggest area that’s still lacking in the product, though.  I would’ve liked to have seen the extraction process automated, along with identifying exactly which driver install setup file to run (maybe in a future version – we’ll see).

Nevertheless, Driver Robot takes what used to be an error-prone Web search, sift through the results, look through each website to find the proper driver, manually compare the versions and make sure the latest version is chosen and then manually download the driver install files.  So Driver Robot automates the most error-prone part of the process, making driver selection and downloading so easy (dare I say) – even a caveman could do it!

Anyway, that’s the good news.  The bad news is, full use of Driver Robot isn’t completely free, but it is very affordable.  I can understand why they charge a little for it.  It’s a nice little tool that saves a ton of time and greatly simplifies the complexities of driver management.  And the 100,000+ latest drivers in the database is a real time saver.

Bottom Line:

Driver Robot takes you by the hand, and shows you step by step the easiest way to find the best drivers for your Windows 7 (or earlier) system and makes downloading, installing and updating drivers as easy as it gets.

Click here to visit the Driver Robot site

If you’re looking for Windows 7 drivers downloads for your PC, there’s a couple of ways to do this – the fast easy way and the manual way.

Downloading Windows 7 Drivers

You can quickly determine which drivers you need for Windows and and download them  is Driver Robot, which I recommend for non-technical PC users.

It scans your Windows system in about one minute or so, then shows you all the drivers that are installed, and which ones are out-of-date.  It’s free to download and do the scan and then you can license a copy to automate and manage all your drivers, if you want.  I found it’s worth the small fee to register the program and just make my driver issues go away…

The other way – use Google to search and locate each specific driver

The traditional way to find and download drivers is you visit  each particular hardware vendor website, or just use Google to search for the driver you need.  Click on the  ”Support”  link on the vendor’s website and you can probably also search for your driver there.  You’ll need to know the model number of your hardware device.

Summary

The best way to handle Windows 7 driver downloads and keep your drivers up-to-date from now on is to use Driver Robot.  It’s free to download and scan your system to see exactly what drivers need to be updated, and inexpensive to get a licensed version that automates the downloads for you.

Otherwise, you can manually seek out each Windows 7 driver you need and download it yourself manually.

After a Windows 7 Upgrade

If you upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista, then there may have been various drivers that were excluded from the upgrade process because Windows itself didn’t come with compatible drivers (or believed there to be a compatibility issue).  For those hardware items to work, you’ll need to find an appropriate driver.  Windows 7 does a relatively good job with drivers (compared to earlier versions of Windows), but it can’t include all possible drivers.

Even if you didn’t upgrade and installed Windows 7 fresh on your PC, there could be missing drivers, especially if your computer is a bit older or you have older peripherals and devices attached to it.

For example, when I upgraded my Sony VAIO laptop that’s several years old, the display brightness control stopped working, so I had to go get the proper motherboard and keyboard drivers to resolve this annoyance.

Finding Windows 7 Drivers – The fast and easy way

There are several ways to approach driver updates in Windows 7.  The easiest way I’ve found is to download Driver Robot and do a quick scan of your drivers (especially if you’re non-technical and just want this driver problem to go away).

This tool will scan your Windows installation, and automatically pinpoint any missing, out of date or driver issues, along with finding you the best available driver.  It only takes a couple of minutes and is a worthwhile and easy step to take.  Best of all, it’s free to download and do the scan.

Another easy thing to do is to check Windows Update to see if a new driver might be available on the Windows site (doubtful if you just upgraded, but worth a try anyway).  To access Windows Update, simply click on Start, then All Programs and choose Windows Update.  Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the driver you need will be there.

The old-fashioned way – with a bit more manual effort and time for each driver…

If Windows Update doesn’t find the driver you need, you can always go to the hardware vendor’s website and look for the driver there.  Drivers are usually located in the “Support” area of a vendor’s website.  You’ll need to know the model number of the hardware, so you can see what drivers are available.  If you don’t find a specific driver marked for Windows 7, you can usually get away just using the latest Vista driver (I say usually, because sometimes these drivers aren’t compatible and were excluded from the Windows Upgrade for a reason).

If you’re more technical, you can always run a Web search for your driver by typing “hardware driver”; e.g., to find a driver for an HP Office Jet 7300 printer, you could search for “HP OfficeJet 7300 driver”.  In this example, you’ll see on Google that the right link comes up at the top of the search results, then you have to poke around on the vendor’s website until you find the driver you need, then download it and install it.

Summary

After installing or upgrading to Windows 7, your PC is actually working after installation, but  a number of things are may not be running optimally and some of the more obscure devices may not be working at all (like my brightness control I mentioned earlier, for example).  More specialized multi-media PC’s and portable devices are especially likely to require some driver updates for full functionality to be restored.

The fastest and easiest way to find all your drivers and keep them up-to-date is to get Driver Robot – it’s free to download and do a quick scan.  I use it now and don’t have to worry or waste time dealing with out of date drivers.  It will scan your system and quickly pinpoint driver issues, and best of all, it’ll locate the best driver for you in it’s database of over 100,000 drivers. In fact, this little tool is so easy to use and comprehensive, I think I’ll dedicate an entire post to it later.

I hope this gets you started in the right direction to resolve your Windows 7 driver-related issues.

Happy computing!

Welcome to the Windows 7 Drivers information site.

I was an early adopter of Windows 7, back in August 2009 as a Microsoft TechNet subscriber, which gave me a head start on Windows 7.  I hope you find this site and its various Windows 7 driver articles useful and helpful.  Fortunately, there are some ways to make this difficult driver management problem a lot simpler these days.

Windows 7 drivers are similar in many respects to drivers of earlier versions of Windows. In fact, amany Windows Vista drivers are compatible with Windows 7, and may be the place to start until a stable Windows 7 driver becomes available for your particular needs.

If you’re reading this, chances are you have upgraded from Windows XP or Windows Vista, and then ran into some kind of driver-related issue, and could use some assistance, such as:

• Finding the right drivers for your PC hardware on Windows 7, such as sound drivers / audio drivers, network drivers, display drivers, 64 bit drivers, motherboard drivers and the like
• How to download the drivers and figure out which ones you actually need to use
• How to install drivers in Windows 7 (or update drivers to the latest version).

Once you get upgraded to Windows 7 and your drivers and other applications are all installed, I think you’ll be much happier with it.  Like many, I suffered through Vista for several years and it’s a big relief to finally be on Windows 7.

Anyway, I’ll be back again soon with some additional posts and helpful articles, and maybe even a how-to video on how to manage drivers in Windows.

Rick