http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/12/windows-driver-updates/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/12/windows-driver-updates/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:57:35 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/12/windows-driver-updates/ One would think that there should be at least some free working tools for the Windows operating system that allow users to scan if drivers installed on the computer system are up to date or need updating. A user searching for terms like Windows driver updates or driver updates will most likely be disappointed as the top spots are held by commercial products that sometimes promise a free scan but require registration and purchase before the drivers can be downloaded. There is not really a lot of choice in the free sector which could be explained by the sheer volume of hardware devices and drivers which require a huge database in the backend that gets updated hundreds of times a day. Probably to much work for a group of individuals but excellent for a community project.

Anyway, some free programs to update Windows drivers exist. We have reviewed Driver Max in the past. The application has made some leaps version wise. It can not only be used to scan for Windows driver updates but also to identify unknown hardware or to perform device driver backups. A click on the check for driver updates button in the updates and identification category will start the scan of the computer system’s hardware.

The results will be displayed on the website of the software developer in table form listing the name of the device as well as the installed version and the latest version in the database. A disk symbol at the end of each line leads directly to the download of the device driver.

The download pages list all downloads for the selected device. There is no mentioning if the drivers are alpha, beta or final drivers and it is recommended to perform a search on a search engine to verify the result. The suggested update for the outdated Intel Chipset Software Installation on the test system turned out to be an alpha driver. A quick search revealed a final driver that was available for download.

The list of downloads could use some filtering options to filter languages and alpha or beta drivers. Still, it is a better alternative than searching for all device driver updates manually. It will at least list the drivers that are not up to date anymore which will narrow down the manual process to a minimum. A free registration is required to use the program.

A similar program is 3DP Chip (read: Computer Driver Updates) which will only scan the most important components of a computer system.

Tags: device driver, Device Driver Backup, driver backup, driver update, driver updates, drivers, windows driver updates, windows software

Related posts

• Free Driver Update (10)
• Device Driver Backup (15)
• Device Doctor Scans Windows For Driver Updates (30)
• Powerful Device Manager Device Remover (12)
• Device Driver Cleanup (9)

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/12/windows-driver-updates/feed/ 7 http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/05/device-driver-backup/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/05/device-driver-backup/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:57:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8724 Driver Backup 2 (via Download Squad) is a portable open source software that can be used to backup and restore the drivers of a computer system. The backup software automatically scans the computer system after start and displays the discovered devices and their drivers in a list divided into categories that look like they were taken from the computer hardware dialog of the Windows operating system.

The software application has a surprisingly small size of just 1 Megabyte and runs pretty solid and fast. After the initial scan of the system’s device drivers a backup can be initiated. It is up to the user to backup all device drivers or only the drivers that have been selected. The backup software provides filters to display only OEM or third party drivers as well as only those drivers that have been digitally signed or are fully portable.

The device drivers can be stored on the computer’s hard drive using custom descriptions, filenames, path formats and device path formats. The device drivers will be stored in separate device folders by default. Each folder contains the drivers of that device. This can be a single .inf file or dozens of files that are needed for the device.

Once a device driver backup has been created it can be used to restore that set of drivers on the computer system. You can either restore a single device driver by installing the driver from the directory it was saved in or all device drivers from withing the device driver backup software.

Backup and restoration of backed up device drivers is a quick and easy process which makes Device Driver 2 a perfect companion for a USB device with enough storage space to store the drivers.

The device driver backup software comes with a few command line parameters to automate the backup and restoration process further. There is also a command line builder which is currently only available in Italian language. It should however be relatively easy to use it to create the parameters needed for the desired operation.

Tags: backup drivers, backup software, Device Driver Backup, device drivers, driver backup, driver backup software, portable software, restore drivers, windows software

Related posts

• Windows Driver Updates (7)
• Web Browser Backup Software FavBackup Updated (3)
• Email Backup Software KLS Mail Backup (0)
• Backup Email Clients and Web Browsers (15)
• Youtube Video Search Is A Barebone Youtube Downloader (2)

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/05/device-driver-backup/feed/ 15