every time i get this it works for a week.

Only updates drivers for Windows O/s nothing else . very disappointing I was after an update for video card - zilch - .

*Are there any known conflicts with other software? I have installed the program in Windows Vista Home Premium but cannot get Driver Magician to run. No error messages or reaction at all after trying to Run as Administrator. How can I find known conflicts?

In my previous comment I meant to say "out of date drivers" not "out of drivers"

To everyone having problems with slow download speeds it will be because so many people have just downloaded Driver Magician from here and are downloading driver updates. In a day or two the downloads should be fast.

To #76 Amy, I find your comment surprising as Driver Magician doesn't find out of drivers in my experience and I have run in a a number of computers. Secondly I'm not sure what "hacked together packages" you are talking about - I've used just about every driver updated software there is, both paid and free software and none of them have ever downloaded "hacked together packages." Maybe you can provide more details to support your claim?

I’ve been using this software for years. It is a life saver when you want to install your os fresh. Backup all your drivers, put them on an external hard drive, then reload them once windows is reloaded. Windows 7 is the best because all you need to do is search the “Drivers backup” folder and it will search all the containing folders as well. With XP, you have to find the individual folder, but it’s still better than searching the internet for an “unknown device” driver in your hardware manager. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many hours this software has saved me.

For myself, it's a bit on the unacceptable side that the drivers that I would download and, presumedly, install are NOT from the source sites but some kind of bulk storage... maybe. I check my drivers regularly at the sites of the manufacturers.. for example, NVidia or ATI,and do NOT download them from someone I have never heard of. Obviously, in a situation where they have to store drivers, you will eventually start missing them. also, there is no guarantee that they are "pristine".. unhacked.

I try to activate it in windows 98 but it still says I only have 15 days.

Installed OK onto Windows XP Pro SP3.

Note that it creates approx 950 registry entries. Wow.

Register activation OK.

On first run after that, select all, click Start Backup - program 'finishes' without doing anything.
Quit program, restart program, select all, click Start Backup - this time it does the backup process.

Two Important NEEDS to be added to program:

1) Allow for it to CREATE A FOLDER when it asks to browse to the driver backup destination. Currently, it requires you to already know and have created an empty folder within Windows Explorer. Not user friendly.

2) Allow for a text or html REPORT of the Drivers found and of the Drivers backed up.

Hi,

Note from the Donationcoder page that the open source DriverBackup! looks like a healthy alternative to Double Driver.

With the caveat that it is Net 2.0 based, which hopefully is not a factor on restore, only on saving.

btw .. One of the nice things about Double Driver is that it gives you a few different save-restore options. To be safe you can do more than one, with a bit of redundancy.

Steven

Wasn't there problems last time with this software being detected out the wazoo by several different antivirus and antimalware products? I'm iffy about this one...

I'm not talking about those warnings you get because Norton is retarded and complains if a program hasn't been downloaded more than a certain number of times (which really hurts developers btw, having to wait on Symantec to go and say "oh yeah, it's clean, we'll stop flagging it now" every single time they update their software) - I'm talking about like legit it was detected as malware. Usually yeah, one or two is a false positive, but I'm not taking any chances - sorry.

Hi Folks,

Driver backup is very good for a potential OS reinstall, eg. your video may be funny, and your Ethernet thing may not get you to the Internet, a big hassle. Fundamental stuff for operations that may be flakey on the initial OS reinstall. I ran into these problems.

(This is not a factor for an image reinstall but OS reinstalls are very nice and clean when necessary.)

Double Driver is what I recommend, with at least one excellent experience where it saved me a lot of hassle, precisely because it only specializes on backup and restore (and list and print)... not encouraging dubious updates, no flash, simply neat and clean.

Just be sure that you backup the drivers somewhere, e.g. on an external disk and/or USB, that is named well and ready for a restore. Puter name, date, etc, type of backup should be clear.

Here was a little Donationcoder discussion in 2008

Is there a good freeware program to backup/restore installed drivers (Win XP) - 2008
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=15057.msg131161

And:

Easily backup and restore your drivers with Double Driver - 2009
http://dottech.org/freeware-reviews/7225/easily-backup-and-restore-your-drivers-with-double-driver/

If you want to play with updating drivers, that is your prerogative, however the real important issue is simple and crisp backup.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

@50: On my computer, I can back up Windows drivers... I have Microsoft Mouse installed, and it backs up my mouse driver if I select it. To view all drivers, you have to go to Driver Backup>Search All Drivers. I wonder if Driver Magician is not compatible with older hardware. There are several comments where people running XP machines have experienced problems with Driver magician.

I read the help, and just learned that for purchased software, it is free lifetime upgrades. Most likely not for this giveaway as Roger Bertrand #62 found out. Lifetime upgrade is better than Raxco's PerfectUpdate, which is a yearly subscription, if DriverMagician does the same job efficiently.

@ #14: The registry key that says "endtrialtime" and a date is meaningless in my case. Not only is the date different, it is also a past date, 12-22-2011. My theory is that this is because the previous version was designed to expire at this time. This might be some kind of artifact from that version because in my case, I was using the previous version and upgraded using this one. I saw another person commented that the previous version had expired. Mine probably had too but I hadn't ran it in a few weeks. In your case, it is probably the same thing. That key is meaningless.

This fills an important need! It installed easily. After it opened, I closed out of it, then activated it, and that worked perfectly. When I re-opened the app, it was then registered to giveawayoftheday. Excellent - thanks so much, GAOTD and GoldSolution!

Correction to my previous comment.
DriverMax Free edition does allow you to download digitally signed drivers. However DriverMax Free edition finds digitally signed drivers as well as digitally unsigned drivers. You are restricted to 2 downloads per day and you have wait about 20 seconds.

Apparently DriverMaxPro gives you only digitally signed drivers and there is no limit to number of downloads per day.

Horrible. Many drivers it "found" were out of date. Many drivers were hacked together packages made by who knows? Some kid in his basement? I'm not installing any drivers that aren't from the manufacturer!

This is "Buyer Beware Ware".. If anything go the manufacture and not some kid who made up a faked version of the driver package.

If you have a $29.99 computer, then install this $29.99 program. If your data is worth more than $29.99...RUN!

Downloaded earlier today. Installed,registered fine. I did the Activation first then followed with the setup. Registration was fine showing it to be registered to Giveaway of the Day. No 15-day message appeared. Did a Restore point; ran a backup; then ran a scan. Five updates appeared and I expected them to. Like that I can save the driver DL to my Download/Security Scan Folder before installing them by doing some research. Also, like the information that is given about the driver(s) DL URL and the signature element etc. Not an IT Techie but this looks simple enough for me use.

@ Cheers from Italy!!

Thanks for the information.

Wayne

Lots of good advice by several persons who commented here in GOTD. If your current system is performing well, then avoid "updating" your drivers unnecessarily and risk some form of malfunction after.

Updating to "best or "most up to date" drivers will make your system better - is a myth.

It appeals to a sense of greed and to a hubris of "my driver is better than yours" one-upmanship silliness. Something for gadget freaks - "I have the latest driver" implying "I am better than you".

Have been using Driver Genius (a paid software) some time back, then tried various freeware such as DriverMax, Double Driver, Driver Detective, etc....

Be aware that some "freewares" are merely enticements to a lifetime of continuous payments to a software company. The thin end of an axe. For example, when you really use DriverMax, there will be prompts to ask you to upgrade to a paid subscription to DriverMax Pro before you can download the digitally signed drivers. If you use the "free" version then you can only download the digitally unsigned versions - DANGER.

How are the companies able to offer you "free" driver updates?

According to another forum, when you first open DriverMax, it uploads all drivers on your PC to a DriverMax database. I don't recall they ever asked my permission - but maybe it is hidden inside the EULA that you have to agree to before you can even install DriverMax.

In at least one of them, (name withheld to protect the guilty) you have to agree (cannot recall whether there is a legal notice that you have to click and agree) to SHARE ALL of the drivers in your current PC into a common pool. Before you can download any "free" digitally unsigned driver update from the common pool.

If you are not a knowledgeable user in such crappy common driver pool, then you can foolishly download and install a WRONG driver that can hose your PC, crashing it completely. Or install a malware disguised as a driver.

Driver Magician looks alright. Use it for Backup & if necessary, Restore of drivers.
Double Driver seems alright too for backup and restore.

Read this:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Dangers-of-Free-Drivers-Downloads&id=3648490

Even when it is genuine, the "latest" driver is not always the best.
Because it may have serious performance issues with the older hardware/software in your system.

Read this:
http://ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com/2008/06/p1610-latest-driver-is-not-always-best.html

Never allow AUTOMATIC update of all or any drivers in your PC where you are clueless what happened. (Google for Driver Robot)
Always maintain manual control if you really need to update drivers.

I eventually got 5 drivers to backup. These were what I thought was hanging the system. It took quite some time to back up these 5, but eventually all is backed up.

I am having the same problem as #56. The program hangs after backing up 42% of the drivers.

I agree it takes WAY TOO LONG to download through this program. I have been copying the exact name of the driver from the bottom section of the results page after you highlight a needed driver and click download. At the bottom at the very end of the URL is the exact name of the driver. Enter that into Google and find another, faster, better place to download the file. It works for me.

I attempted to download an audio driver and a network adapter driver. Each required more than 4 hours on my high-speed modem. Is that normal?

this software is OK , now the last few incarnations of this acts as trial , unregisters itself after a time, so always back up your drivers first manually is best, then download all the updates you can at a given point; tedious yes I know. then install them only one at a time between reboots. May be good at this point, pending you have made system restore points, and no other new apps have been installed. On install of say any HD audio drivers, or chipset drivers that require reboot installs similar to windows updates, has lost me several register keys, must be some unorthodox method of storing the keys that they get overwritten and voila you are now unregistered and after the 15 days you can't use this anymore!!

Driver Magician gave me slow driver download links, saying 12 hours for 1 driver download going at 3.5kbs and I have 25mbps connection? does it always take many hours to download drivers? what kind of cheap servers are they using?

Activate.exe == presets registration data into Windows Registry

Setup.exe == Driver Magician Setup v3.65, GoldSolution Software

installs into directory of your choice, 4 MB, the program itself.

BUT also adds & "registers" a number of files in \Windows\system32
(another 4 MB - some ActiveX controls, a ZIP/encryption library, &
a few MS ActiveX controls)

optional desktop icon

otherwise, install looks clean (don't know how many registry entries?)

on startup, asks to update its database, which it does speedily

resizable window
clean interface
includes CHM help file

by default it only shows drivers that are NOT automatically provided
by MS.

selection of drivers to backup is somewhat limited. only choices are
one-by-one or select-all. if you select-all, there is no un-select-all.
(you could close the program & start over, or unselect one-by-one)

does not show driver "size", if there is such a thing, & therefor
cannot estimate a backup size.

actual backup went fine. multiple options as to the type of backup
(to folder, ZIP, SFX, setup).

restoration looks & works just like the backup portion of the program
(i did not try a actual restoration)

in that respect, the two could be "identified" a bit clearer. IOW, if
you are not paying attention you may start a restore, thinking that
you are in backup mode.
(OK, so you really mustn't be paying attention, but ...)

program seems simple in operation
appears to do all that it says
can search for updated drivers, provides URLs (complete with version,
date & size) & can download the same
no glaring faults that i see

main concern i have is, is this something that i actually need?

to me, thinking its main value would be in pointing out something i
may have overlooked? thinking it could/might make more sense to
have the latest drivers on hand, backed up, rather then "recreating"
the drivers as this does. (but it can help you in fetching them ...)

This appears to be an area of much uncertainty.
I would really appreciate it, if Fubar could give us his thoughts.

Has anyone played with this on windows 98? I am thinking of using it on some 98 machines.

Incredibly slow download speeds for the server that the software directs you to for the updates.

Downloaded and installed find on my Win7 32 bit machine. I didn't see a message about a 15-day trial. Driver backup ran without a hitch, but the first driver I tried updating was taking forever -- after a few minutes it was predicting 2.5 hours for a 30mb file. I was able to get the driver from Intel's site in moments, so the problem seems to be on Driver Magician's end.

Has anyone tried downloading any drivers yet? I've been downloading a 107MB file now for over an hour. Seems their servers are either really busy or really slow. This transfer rate is 8.31 KB/sec; just a hair faster than dial-up. I have comcast with speeds exceeding 20MB/sec. What gives?!

It worked great on my Win7 64bit system. It backed up flawlessly, and found about 15 drivers that were out of date. I really like the text info on the drivers that let you know if they are digitally signed.

I tried the other two programs suggested mppcdriver and double driver. Personally I did not like either. MyPC Driver, on several of the drivers provided like 20 different drivers. Now if you are up on what model and type of hardware you have this is fine, but for those that are not PC Savy, they could hurt their computer rather then helping by installing the wrong driver. On double driver it took me to DOS commands, not my cup of tea.

Thanks GOTD for a great giveaway today!!

ok so it finally downloaded one and all i get is a error when trying to open the zip files this makes this software pretty useless in my eyes

ok so i figured out they download all the updates via a website called driverbulk.com instead of directly from the websites this is why it is slow to download

I don't know if it was due to this software, but right after I installed it on a new laptop (Windows 7x64), and had it update my drivers, I started having problems. I could not go into my email because I kept getting a warning message that I needed to enable Active X. After going into the Control Panel and using two different ways tring to get it to activate, I still could not turn on (or enable ActiveX.)But this was not the end of my problems. I could not watch videos on YouTube because it stated that I needed the latest version of Adobe Flash, and even though I then went to the Adobe website and uploaded the latest version, the videos still would not play. And finally, I kept getting a warning that my antivirus was turned off, checking I found that it was indeed turned on. I fionally had to go in and use restore points, not once, but twice to get my computer back to operating correctly. I then reinstalled the Driver Magician once again to try it once more, but this time I did not have it automatically update my driovers. I have my fingers crossed and hopefully before it was some kind of glitch. So at the moment I would have to give it a thumbs down. In addition, when I went to activate it, it stated that it was only a 15 day trial membership. It would appear that GOTD needs to be more careful in what they offer, and not what appears to be merely trial software.

Have used this for many years - thanks GOTD for the new one! Download it now...

Does anyone else have extremely slow download rates when downloading via this program? im on a direct line at 1gb/s speed and it says it will take 11 hours to download 96mb? this is the same for all the driver websites not just 1 now if i download something else for example a game thats 5gb it will take me 2 hours or so so im not totally understanding why it seems to be so slow

other than that seems a good program

I used it, worked very well but it died on me because it expired after “X” days. Somewhere in AUGUST 2011 it was offered and again with a time limit. No use for me. I have found: Double Driver Backup (http://majorgeeks.com/Double_Driver_d4802.html) and Driver Backup 2 Rev 6 (http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2008/12/03/driver-backup-2-is-a-free-portable-drivermax-alternative/) which are completely free and work perfectly well. They do exactly what they say they are supposed to do: BACK UP AND RESTORE DRIVERS, and the interface of the second one is rather fancy, while the first one is bare bone, but works exceptionally fast and well. If you want BACKUP AND RESTORE capability, then you have it with these two software. If you want to spend 30 USD on software that will give you driver updates then Magician is ok.
My advice to GOTD is that if they are going to present SOFTWARE as a GIVEAWY, it has to be a GIVEAWAY, not some time limited trial thing that I can get from many SHAREWARE. It is a GIVE AWAY or NOT. Can't be a TIME LIMITED GIVE AWAY, then it is not, it is a LAY AWAY.
I personnally do not want to spend time downloading and installing to find out it is a TIME LIMITED offer.

When updating I get this:"There is no driver update information for your PC in Windows Vista x86, please run it later". I assume I am up to date according to this program?

Comment 33: beware, some of your great gems are rated dangerous with Spyware Blaster. Mypcdrivers is such an instance! May be free for a bad reason!
The Drivermagician is alright. But I think I will back up before using it just in case. A friend of mine has been praising this program which is why I downloaded it.
However, I noticed that there was no cancel button to the live update when I was updating. So you need to click on the x button instead.

Every driver it tries to download only downloads a file called index.html, no drivers at all.

I had this software from the previous GOTD and uninstalled couple of programs after the driver backup was created.
Now, when I updated my drivers from the back-up, it loads the drivers for the software that is no longer there and win 7 ultimate freezes upon restart.
Not a well thought of program. I will not install it again.

@48... did you use the previous GOTD offer? And did you uninstall it first. 'Cause this is a message you get when you mess with the registry settings. I'm guessing the old settings weren't updated on this install.

I installed this last time it was offered. My one year trial expired after a 3 month update. I'd suggest backing up the registry software settings in case that will help restore the app when it goes away in another 90 days. This was a helpful app while it briefly lasted.

I've used Slim Drivers and Driver Max (both free). Slim Drivers identifies updates, but doesn't tell you what the specific update is... that sux.

I prefer DriverMax, though it can be over aggressive if you follow it blindly... but if you check out what it wants to do first, you can make a better decision. Since DriverMax lets you know what update it is recommending, you can always go and download from the source provider (eg, nVidia).

#33 - I know, you mean it in a positive way, but many of your links leads to sites, that injects harmful software into yoor computer. Try, please, to use a site advisor or Web Of Trust, before you link to "some gems" in future. I see, how many there already gave you thumbs up for your comment. Please, be sure, before you post.....and that goes for every each of us.

No issues on install but I have Driver Genius as well and both say I have outdated drivers but they don't show the same devices.

This isn't directly related to the today's giveaway itself, but why is it that screenshots of the programs being given away are not available CONSISTENTLY? Sometimes there are screenshots and sometimes there aren't. I can't tell if this is on GAOTD or the software maker, but it would be nice to be able to look at an enlarged screenshot without having to risk going to the web site of some fly-by-night software maker and possibly getting driven by on! -- Just a thought.

Anyway, about today's offering, it looks to be an okay program, but I was going to install it and changed my mind because I'm already using a program called DriverMax, which has an excellent FREE version, and I realized it was doing everything I needed it to do, so why risk the clutter and potential problems. Therefore, I can't really offer a fair critique of Driver Magician.

@33 it says you get a free drivers report, but is the software actually free in it's entirety? once downloaded it wont tell you you're getting a partial driver update till you purchase?