Drivergenius.org

How To Update Your Drivers When Having Hardware Problems

This piece takes a look at how to update drivers that have become outdated or are not working properly anymore. If you need some help, read this first.

What is driver software?

These are important files that are found on computers with a Windows or other operating system. These files are used to help operate the various hardware components of your personal computer.

Why is it important to have the latest driver software?

If one of your computer devices are not working as it should you may fix the problem by installing the latest driver version for your hardware. This might fix a bug in the program leading to an error occurring.

These errors can take on a variety of different shapes. Sometimes you can just get an error message. Sometimes your hardware will cease to function completely. You may even experience computer lockups.

How do you update drivers for your personal computer?

First you need to know the brand and model of the piece of hardware you need new drivers for. Then you go to the specific manufacturer’s web site or download support page and search for the latest version. Download the correct file to your desktop and unzip the file.

If you don’t know how to go about this process, you need to consider getting software that can do this for you automatically.

Where can you find updated drivers?

The quickest way is to visit the manufacturer’s website. Unfortunately, many brands of hardware don’t make it clear exactly who the original manufacturer is, or what the exact model number is.

In cases like this a driver update program, as we mentioned earlier, can automatically scan your computer and the world wide web for the latest versions of all your hardware drivers. This is the easiest way to update drivers by far.

Update drivers Driver Genius, update driver

Take Advantage of Your Printer with the Right Printer Drivers

If you have a printer you need printer drivers. This is software that is designed to help with the data conversion for the printing process. Without this, your printer cannot interface with your computer. If you send any data through the printer port without a correct printer driver installed, you will either receive an error message, or the printer will produce a bunch of garbage.

It is important to keep your printer drivers up to date. Updated drivers help prevent incompatibilities, crashes or other less than desirable events that can occur while using your printer. Often updated printer drivers are also better optimized, meaning that they use less of your system resources. This results in a smoother running, faster computer.

HP in particular is well known to produce rather bloated and poorly optimized printer drivers. This applies in particular to their all-in-one multifunction printers, that also need drivers for the attached scanner and fax machine capabilities.

As there are so many printer manufacturers and different models, it can be a bit of a pain keeping up with all the driver changes taking place.

To automate this process you may find and install a printer driver download program. These types of driver programs are specifically designed to search for, download and install the newest printer drivers available for your personal printer model.

Alternatively you can go online and search for a printer driver yourself. You need to find the latest driver that is compatible with your specific operating system and printer model. This in itself can be a bit of a nightmare for inexperienced users.

Using HP as an example again, often a number of downloadable files is listed for any given printer, and it’s not always clear what exactly you should be downloading. Finding driver detection software that can automate this process is highly recommended.

printer drivers hp printer drivers, printer drivers

Restoring drivers to your computer

You need not install drivers one by one after reinstalling your operating system. Just one click is all you need to install all your backup drivers automatically. To restore a driver:

1. Click the ‘Restore Drivers’ icon.

2. Select the backup record you want restore from the record list, then click ‘Next’.

3. You can also restore drivers from the appointed backup file. Click the ‘Browse my computer for backup drivers’ button and then select the source type. If your backup type is ‘Default’, select the ‘Folder’ option. If your backup type is ‘ZIP file’, or ’self-extracting file’, please select the ‘File’ option.

4. Click the ‘Browse’ button to choose the location for the backup file, then click ‘Next’.

4. Now your backup files and their details will appear in the list. Select the driver you want to restore and click ‘Next’ to start restoring.

Note: We suggest you close all applications before restoration to avoid conflicts. Do not perform any operations during the restoration process. You will be prompted to restart your computer after restoration is complete. All your drivers will be installed and will then work correctly after the system reboot.

Restoring by the Auto-Installer

If you have backed up your drivers to an auto-installer, all you need to do is launch the .exe file, and select drivers in the list. Then click the ‘Start Restore’ button to start their installation. You can also perform an unattended installation by using the command line mode. Using Auto-Installer, you can also reinstall drivers on multiple computers that have the same configuration at one time. This is another time-saving feature of Driver Genius Professional.

Command line usage: DriverBackup.exe /S/R

/S: Silent mode: restores all drivers automatically in silent mode. (No prompt dialog box appears.)
/R: Reboots the computer after the installation has completed.

Note: With the trial version, you can only restore drivers for video cards and network cards. This limitation will be removed after you register your software.

Driver Genius Restore Driver

Driver Genius Professional Edition

Backing up your drivers

You should back up your drivers before reinstalling the operating system or updating drivers. To back up your drivers:

1. Click the ‘Backup Drivers’ icon. The program searches for all drivers installed in current system.

2. A list of installed drivers appears in the right window pane. To view details of a device driver, click the device in the list. The details are displayed in the window.

Current used Drivers
These drivers are currently being used on your computer. They need to be backed up.

Windows Original Drivers
These drivers are included in the Windows installation CD and are installed automatically during the Windows installation procedure. They normally do not need to be backed up.

Disconnected Devices Drivers
These drivers belong to devices which are not currently connected to your computer. If you want to use these devices in the future, their drivers must be installed on your PC. Therefore, you need to back them up. This is very important when installing drivers on a clean, newly-installed operating system.

3. Select the drivers that you want to back up and click ‘Next’. By default all drivers will be backed up. This will take more time and disk space, so you may want to back up only the currently used drivers.

4. Select the Backup type. Driver Genius can back up drivers to a ZIP file, a self-extractor, or an Auto-Installer. Click the drop down menu -> Select the Backup type. Choose from the 4 options available. If you want to install drivers on multiple computers with the same configuration, we strongly recommend you should back up the drivers to an auto-installer. You can use the Auto-Installer to install drivers on a new system very quickly without Driver Genius, and thereby save lots of time.

5. Choose a location to save your driver backup files and click ‘Next’ to start the backup process.

Warning! Do not save the backup files in the partition where you install Windows. All data in that partition will be lost during the Windows installation process.

Using the command line to back up drivers

Driver Genius allows you to back up your drivers in command line mode.

Usage: DriverGenius.exe [/B|?] [/T|A] [/D|Z|E|I] Backup location

First parameter - Specifies the action
/? - Show help
/B - Backup drivers

Second parameter - Specifies which drivers you want to back up
/T - Third-Party drivers (Recommended)
/A - All drivers

Third parameter - Specifies the backup type
/D - Default backup type: backs up selected drivers to the specified folder.
/Z - Backs up selected drivers and sends them to a ZIP file.
/E - Backs up selected drivers and sends them to a self-extracting file.
/I - Backs up selected drivers and sends them to an Auto-Installer.

Fourth parameter - Specifies the backup location

Example:
C:\Driver-Soft\DriverGenius\DriverGenius.exe /B/T/I D:\DriversBackup.exe

Driver Genius Backing up pc Drivers

Driver Genius Driver Genius, drivergenius, drivergenius 9