Sometimes, it’s not programs in your PC that’s the problem, it’s the devices either attached to it, or inside it. When it comes to a driver error, you can often resolve the problem by updating or downloading new drivers rather than installing or removing software. If a printer suddenly stops working correctly – it’s not communicating with your computer anymore despite being turned on, for example – the drivers may be faulty. Drivers are the small software programs that “speak” to other devices to ensure everything works together correctly.

If your drivers decide they can’t speak to each other anymore, you have a computing disconnect. This not only stops big components like printers, keyboards and monitors, but it can affect smaller, internal items like USB drives, ports, and buses on your motherboard.

First Try: Update a Driver through Windows

To resolve the problem, you can update drivers through Windows. Go to Start and then type “Device Manager” in the search box. Drill down in the menu that appears to find the component of your computer that doesn’t seem to be working correctly. This is where specific error messages can actually help. Did you get a message telling you that …

• “The Computer Cannot Find the ___”?
• Or it is "Unable to connect to ___"?

Then that’s the thing you look for in the device manager. This dialog is nested, so you can click on the action keys (the plus sign) to see the number and type of that device category that your computer has installed.

When you find the printer, speakers or whatever the device may be, right-click on the name of the item and then select Update Driver Software. This will start the Update Driver Wizard that will lead you through the process of finding the newest drivers for the item.

Second Try: Update Manually

While this often works and the update you need will be complete, there are many times when the drivers aren’t immediately found by the computer program and you’ll need to find the drivers manually. Thankfully, this sounds much more challenging that it really is.

To download a driver, visit the website of the manufacturer. For example, if your Dell printer isn’t working, visit the Dell website and search for ‘drivers’ or the product number for your printer. For the Dell product, you’d start on the Dell download page dedicated to software and drivers.

If you know your product number you may be able to search on the manufacturer’s website directly. If not, you can search to find the page dedicated to your product. The example below is the page of downloads and drivers for a Dell printer.

Here’s a tip. Different manufacturers say different things, but the keyword you’re looking for is “support” and “downloads.” Knowing the model number of the device is a big help since you can usually just search for it on a websites’s search box. If not, it’ll often have a ‘breadcrumb’ sequence where you can narrow down the search step by step.

In many cases, you’ll be asked whether you have a Windows 32 or 64 bit operating system. Be sure to check this ahead of time to determine which sort of system you have.

You can identify your system by clicking on Start. Then right-click on Computer or MyComputer to open a context menu.  Select Properties and Windows will display the System Properties dialog.  Beside "system type" will be the type of computer you have. It may be spelled out as “64-bit Operating System “or it may be abbreviated like “x64-based PC.”

To download the driver, simply click on the linked driver software file. The download will begin and the driver package will be stored on your computer. To install it, you may have to do one of two things:

1. More and more driver updates are automatic. That’s good news: you just double-click that file you downloaded and it comes with an install sequence that does all the work for you.

2. Alternatively you may have to tell the hardware to find a driver. This isn’t so bad since, if you used the device manager before, you already know how. Find the hardware in question, opt to update the driver and when Windows asks you to find it, say yes and navigate to the folder where you downloaded the new driver from the manufacturer.

What if the hardware that’s causing problems isn’t in the device manager?

Sometimes the thing you’re pulling your hair out about just isn’t listed in the device manager. What then? Well, the first thing is to get the computer to recognize that something’s there – at that point you’ve got options but until then, you’re stuck.

• If an older version is listed in the device manager, remove it to clear the way for a new one. Find it, right-click it and select: uninstall. Just be sure that is the thing you’re trying to replace. At this point, reboot you’re system.

• When the computer’s coming back on it’ll either detect the software you’ve got plugged in or it won’t. The likelihood is that – if a piece of hardware is plugged in and turned on – Windows will detect it and ask what you want to do. Want it to search the web to find a driver? Let it. No success? Opt to direct it to the hardware packet you downloaded.

• Above all, don’t panic. Remember, even though drivers are important they’re just a form of software. They can be installed and re-installed, so if you delete something you can get it back for free as long as you know how.

What if the hardware that’s causing problems is just too old for my system?

It happens . . . a lot. You’ve got a perfectly good printer/scanner but it’s a little outdated. The latest version of Windows doesn’t know how to find a compatible matching driver for it and you get the message,

• "There was a problem with the installation of your USB/Serial Device" or
• "The Device may not work correctly."

In these instances you may have to get a little creative, but all you’ll do is employ the methods enumerated above.

First thing’s first, do you have the installation CD for that device? If so, latter versions of Windows (like Windows 7) have a feature called Add Legacy Hardware. This means, “install older stuff that I don’t like.” In the Device Manager it’s under the Action menu at the top. This will allow you to muscle an older piece of hardware onto the machine and have it play (mostly) nice with the latest operating system.

No disk? That’s okay, just do a combination of steps from above

1. Go online and search for “Driver for {device name and model number} Windows {version}” There are lots of driver download sites out there. Most are legit; some aren’t. Use the best downloading practices to keep your system safe. Click here to get more information on safe surfing.

2. When you’ve found what you think is a reliable download, get it and store it somewhere on your computer that you can find easily.

3. Clean the slate: disconnect the device and uninstall its driver from the device manager.

4. Reboot

5. Turn on the device and connect it. Either Windows will detect it or you can right-click a driver category in the Device Manager and opt to Scan for Hardware Changes. This should find it.

6. Install the driver

Dealing with older (legacy) software isn’t a perfect science. You may do everything right but just have no luck. That being said, this should give you the best chance to try.

Using an Automatic Driver Updating Program

Of course there are programs that will attempt to do everything we’ve talked about for you, all with varying degrees of success. Reliable driver update programs will be those found on reliable download portals (see the previous entry for a list of some of these.) Use your best judgment when selecting one and keep in mind the considerations you most want to uphold, including price, power, accessibility and safety. Drivers are low-level programs, which means they’re very important to how your computer operates. For a program to be safe, it needs to ensure that you have the ability to back-up and restore various driver states if something changes.

Our recommendation is DriverUpdate, an all in one driver scanner that’s designed to fight errors by having the best balance of the considerations above. It’s powerful, it’s easy and it’s safe. You can find DriverUpdate here.

Drivers are essential programs, but driver errors should not hold your system hostage. The basic principles of clean out the old, reboot, put in the new are the foundation for coping with the errors and for making sure your system (hardware and all) is working at its optimal speed.

In the next issue, we’ll talk about the Windows database, also known as the registry.  Errors here can jumble the internal command structure of a PC, scrambling privileges and making it hard for programs to find resources.

Go to part 4: Managing the Windows Database