There are two types of drivers in Windows XP, signed and unsigned ones. Signed ones have been verified and tested by Microsoft while unsigned ones have not. That does not have to be a bad thing though because the developer tends to test the drivers as well.
If you updated the drivers of your video card regularly you will notice that most drivers are unsigned drivers and they work without problems. If Microsoft would verify them their release would be delayed quite a bit. As far as I know it is not free to get drivers signed either which means it would not make much sense to get beta drivers signed.
Unsigned drivers are however normally the source of driver problems in Windows XP. The easiest way to get a list of all unsigned drivers that are installed is by using the command line tool sigverif. Press Windows R and enter sigverif in the run box. A new window will open named File Signature Verification.
Click on Advanced in that window, check Look for other files that are not digitally signed and choose to look in the folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers. Click ok and start. Windows scans the folder for unsigned drivers and displays them in a list afterwards.
The list is automatically written in the file SIGVERIF.TXT and can be used to verify unsigned drivers using the tool verify. I will write another article about this soon.
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- Verify that Drivers are working correctly
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- Windows Vista Drivers
- Use Driver Grabber to copy drivers in Windows
- Computer Hardware Drivers List
- Backup and Restore Drivers
- Remove Old Windows Device Drivers