Drivers, Drivers, and Drivers

What is a driver? and what do they do? are questions that are pretty common for the average user. Drivers (software driver device driver, virtual driver) are the means by which a device (Printer, Scanner, Digital Camera, CD ROM Drive, External Hard drives), communicates with the main brain of the Computer so everybody can work together and be on the same page. Drivers allow hardware, software and even virtual devices and drives to all communicate with each other. Drivers are the middle men or interpreters for devices to all work together with the CPU.

A few years back Drivers were usually found on CD's that came with your Printer, Scanner, Digital Camera etc. You would simply insert the CD and follow the on screen instructions. This is still used today but now the operating system may have the drivers for some devices or hardware already pre-loaded in Windows itself, and if not is always available via the Internet, so you may not even need the CD. The Internet is the best place to go for the latest drivers (updated). All manufacturers will have their latest drivers posted usually in their Download/Drivers section on the website. As mentioned in last week's blog (for those of you who read it.) do not download your hardware drivers from Windows update as they usually aren't the latest and most up to date drivers.

Current drivers are usually very important when it comes to video cards for gaming purposes. Many of the newest games require high end video cards. The drivers for these video cards are constantly being updated and released. With Video Cards and new drivers can give you increased performance, more reliability. This is also true with Drivers for other devices etc., but can be noticeable with the Video card ones.


Most driver installs can be done by the average home user and many come still with the CD so it is easy as put the CD in and follow the instructions. This works fine for video cards, sound cards, and other devices. When it comes to Routers for your Wireless Network, installing the device and Configuring the Device are two different things. For example setting up a Wireless Network and securing it may involve getting the drivers for your Router, which should be easy to install but configuring it to work within your network could be more complicated. In instances such as these have someone who knows what they are doing take care of it for you. Most of us can build a doghouse for Rover to live in, but most us can't build a house for our Family to live in.

Be careful when downloading drivers, not to install Beta Drivers as these are drivers that are still being tested and could have bugs or cause your system some harm. You should install the latest officially released driver.

So to sum up, the average Home user can and should install most drivers for devices they purchase such as a digital camera, printer etc. However some devices can still be installed may need to be configured by someone with a bit more experience. Try it and if you get stuck call in the pros. Thanks again for reading and have a great rest of the week.


Steve
www.zolexpc.com