Barb wants to know about updating drivers
I was wondering if a program called Driver Detective is recommended by you. I try to follow your suggestions to keep my computer healthy and working well. Thank you in advance for your advice.
Our answer
Hi Barb.
We used to recommend a couple of different driver updating programs, but we stopped that quite a while ago. The reason is simple: There is nothing that will ruin a computer that’s running well faster than installing a new driver that isn’t ready for prime time yet.
Here’s how we look at it. If all of your hardware is running well – running the way you want it to — we don’t care how many new drivers are out there for that hardware; if it is not broke, it doesn’t need to be fixed.
After several experiences with new drivers ourselves and listening to the horror stories of computer savvy friends who were using driver updating programs, we’re going to tell you to leave the drivers alone unless you’re having a problem with a hardware device.
We also recommend setting Windows Update to only download and install important updates and nothing else. Many times new drivers sneak in through Windows Updates too. You can change Windows Updates settings in Control Panel, Windows Updates.
If anyone reading this has a driver updater program installed, you might want to think about uninstalling it. And if any of you have horror stories about problems you’ve had updating drivers, please share them with us here.
Thanks for the answer. I had a question about driver updates, too. I never knew when to update them, where to go to update them, or even if I should tinker with updating them at all. This answers the question, and, as usual, with good, common sense. Thanks for all you do for us out here in computerland.
I have a new phone and tried to get some pictures off of it, told me I needed a driver but I don’t know where to look.
Barb, you should contact the service provider (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) you have for your phone to answer that question.
Adobe has an apparent license to update Flash without impunity. The latest update has a feature that freezes my screen and the computer has to be rebooted. I was told by the tech staff at the site where this happens, to uninstall the latest version, download and go back to an older one, or switch browsers from Firefox to Chrome.
Adobe gives you options to never update, to auto-update and to notify you and let you decide. This dialog appears when you first install Adobe. It looks like you missed it.
I have tried several SO CALLED MAGIC driver up-daters over the past years and not one of them would I recommend. In fact, I would fully recommend our Cloudeight friends advice, unless you are an above average computer savvy Guru and know exactly what is the best correct driver for an application. I have learnt the hard way, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, don’t even try!! Of course, there is a chance you might lucky, but there is the chance you may be very unlucky. I have down loaded missing drivers for graphics cards and the like and that is ok, providing you have the correct details of the hardware and go direct to the appropriate manufactures website, you don’t need “Driver Updaters” to do that!
I found a program on my laptop Control Panel named Driver Utilities by Slimware Utilities that recently got there since 9/1/13. I do not know how it got there? I want to uninstall it (as like you say ‘driver updates may not be needed’ especially if my pc is running fine.)
I go to uninstall it and a msg comes warning me if i do not know this program do not do it. HELP. thank you, J