How to Install Drivers

Hi there!

You probably know already how important it is to install correct device drivers and keep them up-to-date, since you’re reading this page (I’m almost 100% sure you’re looking for the answer to this question: how to install drivers. So I won’t talk much more about the importance of installing drivers. I’ll just get straight to the point. There are few ways of installing drivers. Which one you’ll choose depends on what situation you’re in and what your computer skills are. So, here we go!

Note: As of March 24th, 2012 this how-to is no longer the most complex one available on the Web. This is due to the release of The Ultimate Guide to Installing and Updating Drivers (which is available for free) where you can find 23 pages of text on how to install and update drivers the most safe and secure way. It also provides step-by-step guide to installing and updating drivers in multiple scenarios (depending on what kind of computer you have, what brand it is, etc.), and more than 30 pictures of various procedures you will have to perform in order to install/update your drivers.

Please note that this article is still the most valid and complex how-to available; installing drivers in a way described below is still safe and easy. BUT THANKS TO THE GUIDE IT CAN BE SAFER AND EASIER!

You can grab your FREE COPY of The Ultimate Guide to Installing and Updating Drivers simply by typing your name and e-mail address into the box on the right or here. The Guide will be delivered straight to your Inbox!

Situation #1

You’ve a PC or laptop and still have all the CDs/DVDS

OK, that one’s easy. Since you still have all the software, it’s gonna be a piece of pie. Just insert the CD (or DVD) in your CD/DVD tray and it. What you should see now is a very nice-looking menu where you can install every driver by simple few clicks. Do it. You’re done.

Furthermore, if you own a laptop, some of vendors provide a very nice app that can do the whole process for you. E.g. Fujitsu’s got DeskUpdate. This tool can download and install the latest drivers and software for you. There are some more tools like that, check out the whole list.

Situation #2:

You’ve got the laptop but you’ve lost the CD and your vendor doesn’t provide such a tool

OK, now you’re in a little bit of a pickle. The best thing to do will be to investigate vendor’s download center and check out if it’s possible to download drivers from there. Here’s a complete list of download centers on HowToInstallDrivers.com.

If you’ve found the drivers in your vendor’s download center, then go to step #4, where it’s explained in a great extent how to install all those drivers.

(If you can’t find your vendor’s download center there, or if you can’t find the correct drivers in your vendor’s download center then you’re a little bit screwed. But don’t worry, you can still make it.)

Situation #3:

You don’t have either of that, you don’t know what hardware you have and how to install drivers and you’re kinda stuck, to be honest

OK, this is when things start to get really interesting. And demanding, too. But it can be done in like 5 steps.

Let’s start rollin’!

1. Identify hardware

(If you would rather follow a step-by-step guide written in plain English that will ensure you don’t have any problems while doing it thanks to very descriptive pictures of each step, all you need to do is grab your free copy of The Ultimate Guide to Installing and Updating Drivers to find out how to install drivers the easiest way.)

First of all, you need to find out what hardware you actually have. There are two ways to do that.

1. If you own a laptop, use Google to find your computer’s specifications. Just type the model name into Google + word “specifications” or “specs” or something like that. If you’re lucky, you’ll locate it somewhere on your manufacturer’s site.
2. Use one of those free tools, which will scan your computer and then present you a report on what hardware it’s detected. So just download and run HWiNFO, AIDA64 or PC-Wizard. You might find some other tool, if you Google, but I find those three really ok.

2. Download the drivers

Those you’ll be looking for are most commonly:

• your wireless card
• your ethernet card
• your graphic card
• your sound card
• your motherboard chipset

But sometimes there are more. You might want printer drivers or something else. OK, at this point I think you know better.

Now, what you need to do is to locate those drivers. What I usually do at that point is one of two things:

1. Type the name of the piece of hardware I need drivers for + word “driver” into Google. Then filter the results — I prefer downloading from manufacturer’s site than from those driver directories that aggregate drivers. Then download.
2. Go through manufacturers’ download centers to try and find them there. This process can sometimes be really painful, ’cause some download center’s can really be hard to navigate (yes, I’m talking to you, Intel!) But eventually, you’ll be fine. (Click here for the list of manufacturers’ download centers.)

3. Create Windows Restoration Point

(If you would rather follow a step-by-step guide written in plain English that will ensure you don’t have any problems while doing it thanks to very descriptive pictures of each step, all you need to do is grab your free copy of The Ultimate Guide to Installing and Updating Drivers.)

This is not something that absolutely needs to be done but I recommend you do it. As you probably know, there are times when drivers actually screw something up. Sometimes they’re just bad written, sometimes it’s the user’s fault, ’cause the driver he tried installing was a wrong one (e.g. for other hardware.)

Furthermore, if anything goes wrong during the process of installation, you always can roll back to the last working version. You don’t lose anything. You’re completely safe. I think that’s very important.

4. Install the drivers

After downloading all the files, start installing them.

Now, what about the correct order of installing drivers? There are people who say that the order in which you install the drivers is really not important. I used to be one of them. But just recently I discovered it to be a lie.

I mean, in most cases it doesn’t matter in which order you install drivers, but sometimes it does and you never know what’s going to happen to you.

For instance, just recently I’ve updated drivers on my friend’s computer and after rebooting and testing it a Blue Screen of Death appeared. I rolled back to the previous working state and installed drivers in the correct order. It all went well.

The key is to install drivers in that order: the most important one first, the least important one last.

(Should you want a complete and tested order, grab your free version of my latest e-book The Ultimate Guide of Installing and Updating Drivers.)

You might or might not want to reboot your computer. You certainly don’t need to do that when asked but every now and then can really help. I reboot every few drivers and I find it OK. You may want to do it your way. That’s OK too.

5. Testing

That’s not necessary. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. It’s good to test if your Windows is still stable after installing/updating drivers, I believe though. I mean, take like 30 minutes to see if everything’s OK. Play some games, browse the Web, write some documents, etc. When it’s still stable — you’re done. Yup, you’ve done it, you’ve finished it, now go and be well.

Thank you

Thank you for following my how to install drivers guide. I hope it was helpful and you’ll come back here next time you’ll be installing your drivers.

A better solution

As you can see installing drivers can be a little bit time-consuming and troublesome process.

That’s why at the beginning I’ve mentioned this tool called Driver Detective. This one is designed to eliminate each and every problem you might have with installing drivers.

It’s very nice-looking and easy to use and offers more than 27 million thoroughly-tested drivers (antivirus scan included.) To ensure the highest level of comfort, it provides famous 5-minute driver installation.

This is why HTID highly recommends Driver Detective for all those who don’t want to endure the process of driver installation.

photo by petur r