Your PC, laptop, tablet, cell phone etc. are assembled mostly from off the shelf parts -- that's why there can be so many cell phones & tablets from unknown brands out of places like China. PCs & particularly laptops can have special versions of otherwise off the shelf components when/if the selling brand is large enough to place a big enough order -- that makes it viable for suppliers to create a usually cut down [cheaper] version of what they normally produce & sell.
Component manufacturers typically have reference designs using their components, as well as reference driver sets -- selling brands may alter one or both, or just use what they get from the company making the components. That's why you can buy essentially the same graphics cards from so many competing companies -- they generally use the reference designs for the cards, adding their own cooling hardware. Reference drivers may or may not be directly available from the component manufacturer, while seller approved versions, that may or may not be any different, may or may not be separately available [they may only come pre-installed], & may or may not get updated to match later versions of the reference drivers.
Windows 10 adds a new wrinkle... Some reference drivers were only available via Windows Update, though it's too soon to see if that's a trend that will continue. In the past that has not been a workable solution, & a bad Nvidia driver that Microsoft pushed out was at least partly responsible for being able to delay or hide updates in 10, though when they added the capability to hide updates, they did it through a Microsoft Fix-it rather than adding the change to Windows 10 itself.
A good rule is don't thoughtlessly add any software to your device [PC, laptop, tablet, or cell], with the exception of most of the weekend GOTD games -- when installed by default to the c:\Games folder they take up disk space, but the greatest risk is that you'll not get whatever other stuff done because you're playing them. When it comes to drivers, that rule becomes golden. New driver versions are never released on a whim -- it's your job to find out if they've been released, why, & if that *why* applies to you.
With graphics drivers it's because Windows evolves, & new games are released & also evolve. It's also because graphics hardware is so complex, that none of it works the best it possibly can when initially released -- in fact, they only stop making improvements to graphics drivers when the hardware becomes so old that they can get away not supporting it any longer. That does not mean you don't have to worry about researching a new graphics driver version -- new versions can include very serious bugs, so let other people be the guinea pigs, while you read their reports of lament & are the wiser for it.
Personally I like to identify hardware using eyes-on -- I know what networking chipset this PC uses because I read the numbers off the chips. That's not always possible, but that is the only sure way -- other than that research to find what's inside your devices, & then keep that list somewhere where you won't lose it. When you have a new Windows device, it's a bit of a PITA but it can be worth it to write down or keep in a text file or spreadsheet the information you'll find in the device properties dialogs in Device Mgr. It is possible for software including Windows to misidentify something, & it is possible to have drivers for the wrong device or component installed & [it may even work, though of course not optimally].
TO look for new drivers find & bookmark the web page with those drivers on the company site for the brand of device [PC, laptop etc.]. Also see if you can find [& bookmark] the page with the appropriate driver listing at the manufacturer's site for the individual components, e.g. the network or sound chipsets. If you suspect you'll need them, e.g. you're going to reinstall Windows or upgrade to 10 etc., do a general Google search for drivers for those components you were not able to find direct from a manufacturer, but be overly cautious -- some driver sites are not the safest. And while that copy of Windows is running, copy the FileRepository folder from inside your Windows folder to somewhere off your device, e.g. a USB stick.
It's protected, so you might have to have that copy of Windows running to copy that folder. Inside that folder should be the installation files for every driver making your device work. The names of the folders do not always make it clear which driver is in which folder, so the best way to use it is by updating the drivers in the property dialog for a device in Device Mgr., having it search that copy of your FileRepository folder on a USB stick, or hard drive etc.
In case it helps, from the GOTD download page comments:
"Do note that although some such software says it leaves you the choice to replace the drivers, it does not tell you that what action it has taken (without your permission) during and after the scan. "
On the face of it you really don't know what installing *any* software will do. That's why you read reviews, use sandbox or virtualization apps or VMs to check it out, and above all keep backups current.
"What if the after the scan, the software has locked out your existing drivers, which it has identified to be replaced with "new" drivers from its own database of drivers? You PC will crash on your next boot up, unless you "update" the drivers."
It's a bit difficult to *lock out* drivers... The installation files for most every driver that's ever been installed is stored in a protected FileRepository folder in the Windows folder, & making it more difficult for some software to delete that stuff, the folder names are not explicit, i.e. they don't spell out which driver is stored in a folder. A bad, incompatible, or missing driver can prevent Windows from starting, since critical drivers load before Windows proper starts -- those drivers have to load before Windows starts so that Windows can talk to your hardware. As protection against that happening Windows stores a driver that you've just replaced & gives you the option of booting to Last Known Good on the same boot menu where you see Safe Mode -- the caveat is that works best when you've replaced a single driver before restarting Windows rather than a bunch of them. And of course it's safest to back up before installing or updating any driver, because driver-related problems may take a week or so to show up -- it may be a few days before you run a program or combo of programs that turn out to be incompatible with it. Been there. :(
"You can look at Double Driver and DriverBackup! as both are portable freeware -- and CAN restore.
Beware of lousy trickery software that pretend to be "free" but quietly did not tell you that you can only backup the drivers."
Actually you're better off restoring a full backup rather than relying on *any* software to put your old driver(s) back. That's because some drivers can have hundreds of files, & often not all of them will be removed or restored to an older version -- it may be near impossible to find all related registry entries -- some drivers work with .NET, which may have to be removed & reinstalled to get rid of their .net-related files & registry entries -- for the most part Windows only knows what hardware is installed based on the drivers that have been installed, so if a driver for the wrong hardware has been installed, you may have to know exactly which device that was for, & manually change it back -- and lastly if something gets missed in the registry removing or disabling a driver, & Windows won't start because of that, you can be looking at a lot of work to put things right, e.g. a repair install of Windows.
The only partial exception I'm aware of are graphics hardware drivers when you use a specialized app like DDU [guru3d.com], which is designed to remove every bit of a driver to help make sure that installing a newer or older versions will in fact work. I say partial exception because it does not roll back .NET stuff, & by the time I boot into Safe Mode, run DDU, then install whatever driver, I could have restored a disk/partition image backup.
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"Do not fix anything that is not broken!"
But how do you tell? Seriously...
Writing driver software costs money -- a great many devices would work much better [or in some cases, work] if the manufacturer wrote new drivers, but they save money & don't. So you have to ask, & by that I mean research, why a new driver was written in the 1st place. If it was to include a new model, or maybe fix compatibility with a game you don't play, then it's no big deal to skip it generally. OTOH it may be to fix a security related vulnerability, or get a feature working that has never worked properly, or fix compatibility issues with updated Windows or software etc., so installing the new version is a good thing.
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"Open 'Device Manager' in Windows, go directly to the entries on the list and manually see if they need to be up-dated, if so, Windows will download the correct driver's."
As politely as possible, incorrect...
Windows, or rather Windows Update, only knows about the drivers that manufacturers have given Microsoft. Often they don't give them anything, or give them partial rather than full versions, & often Microsoft wants to install older drivers than what's currently installed or available from the manufacturer. With 10 that turned out to be a real problem when Microsoft forced installation of a bad Nvidia graphics driver [that's one reason you can now sometimes delay or hide updates in 10]. That said, there are times, e.g. with some Intel drivers, where Windows Update or searching for updates through Device Mgr. is useful -- just be extremely careful & back up beforehand.
"Program's like this tend to get 1 or 2 right out of 10."
That's really highly variable depending on the app & your hardware. There are also cases where only one manufacturer bothers to fix the driver for a component, and that driver works just as well for other brands using the same component. An app like Driver Easy Pro *might* pick up on that & save you time searching & researching, &/or you might feel better using the software vs. visiting & trusting sites that can appear a bit sketchy.
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"I update drivers when they cause Windows to crash. If Windows is unstable and a dump is created, I use (for example) the WhoCrashed program to determine the cause."
The gotcha would be that when it's running properly, Windows won't give you a BSOD. Assuming it's running properly, *then* you later get a BSOD, what changed? Something had to. Finding driver [or more precisely device] X associated with a BSOD might mean a hardware problem, a conflicting software problem [including Windows] etc. If after a Windows update a driver has problems & that causes a BSOD, then updating that driver with a new version designed to correct that problem is the right thing to do. But if you don't track down at least the probable cause, updating drivers to fix a BSOD is a bit like buying a lottery ticket when you can't make a payment that's due. :)
