Microsoft will provide some drivers &/or updates via Windows Update, though those may or may not be the full driver package. Win10 may show optional updates on Windows Update, which are drivers Microsoft detected that may or may not be of use -- their wording is something like if you're having trouble these may help. Some component manufacturers provide reference drivers for download, but discouraged this, wanting all updates in their database, so many, i.e. Realtek, stopped. Since some components are used by many manufacturers, sometimes drivers for one brand & model laptop, motherboard etc. will work on others. Some driver update software & web sites offer these *maybe* equivalents. Dumo frees you from having to check manufacturers sites for updates yourself.

Les,

I've noticed that if I give any software on this site a thumbs up, it shows up instantly, incrementing the count up by 1.

If I give it a thumbs down, I get a prompt as to why I am choosing that. After I make a selection as to why, the counter never increments to show my thumbs down vote, even if I refresh the page. I'm not sure if they filter the thumbs down selections, adding them later if the reason is "approved" (similar to the comments section), or if there is a bias on here and some of the thumbs down just never make it into the count. Perhaps it is the latter so as to not discourage the software vendors from returning in the future...

"Glary Utilities free makes the best usable drive backup before changing anything, and also checks for the need to update... says "all ok" almost all the time, and that's probably appropriate, since most systems work just fine without the need to update, considering that updates are usually available simply because there's new hardware out there..."

Politely disagree... Driver backups *may* be fine -- Windows itself often stores the last known good driver when you update a driver, and that's accessible via the boot menu -- but if a driver breaks Windows so it won't start, driver backups are useless. Consider a disk/partition image backup instead. RE: drivers being updated to just include new models, sometimes that's true, which research should reveal. But very often they include fixes, even when the focus is on new models, because the company didn't want to spend the $ on a driver update just for those fixes.

"Computer vendor's site: HP, Dell, Lenovo, and so on have their own suite of drivers for each serial number computer, go get them and save them for reinstall when needed, such as when reinstalling Windows 7 every year."

Those manufacturers will only provide updates for roughly a year -- updates will continue to be released by the component manufacturer, e.g. Intel, but those companies won't spend the $ to evaluate them against their now old hardware. Worse, to prevent customers from potentially causing problems, these companies also try to add locks, so newer drivers without the company's blessing cannot be installed. This was/is enough of a problem that Intel started making it possible to override such locks.

Reinstalling Win7 yearly? I have copies that date to its release, and now live on as VMs -- still running just fine.

Peter Blaise, Keep an eye on here for Driver Booster Pro giveaway of the day. About every six months it seems it appears. I agree, I've used it for several years and it's good. Pro is the way to go, though.

Thanks, TK, very insightful.

I still support Vista, but mostly Windows 7 ... which is really Vista v4 ;-), I just prefer the File Explorer layout of 7 more than Vista, yet I have Vista and XP and even Windows 95 networked with WIndows 7 and 10 for customers and it's seamless ... when 10 actually occasionally works.

If I were to build a driver updater, I'd categorize why each update exists:
- to accommodate newer hardware NOT in m PC?
- security?
- bug fixes?

And I'd categorize and keep all versions toggleable via a menu and a reboot:
- lightest weight ( text- and image-users, versus gamers ),
- age,
- original as installed on day 1 by the vendor,
- iterations and latest,
- beta, have the fire extinguisher ready.

It would be nice to click a driver and have a pop-up offer an inventory of older and newer alternatives with appropriate information notes, and whether or not we have it on file, or have to go get it.

And I'd record notes, such as "buggy" and "faster" and "slow to load" and other information that keeps track of observed differences between drivers.

IObit offers an option to choose between the newest drivers versus the most stable drivers, though I've not seen a manifestation of that meaning anything different in the actual retrieval of updates.

Sadly, Kyle/KCSoftwares isn't even trying to help us build a spreadsheet inventory of what we've got, what we've had, and what's available, there's not much management help.
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Thanks, Mike, but we can reboot in safe mode, uninstall devices, and then reboot in plug-and-pray mode, and reinstall our choice of drivers, skipping the crasher.
__________

The longevity of an installation in my experience depends on NOT playing with it, I have original Windows 95/98 untouched, and of course, DOS 6, no problem.

Windows 7, especially with OS operating system enhancements coming and going, seems to develop a swollen registry that no longer fits in the computer, and so, instead of troubleshooting after a fashion, I reinstall from scratch, and within 1/2 a day, a reinstall has it neat, clean, and fast once more, plus I get to update older smaller drives to 2 TB.
__________

I have no understanding of virtual machines, nor they of me.

I have a dozen computers, and I'm not sure what a virtual machine would offer me.

Isn't a virtual machine on another machine anyway, and doesn't that other machine have an operating system to maintain, with an end-user sitting at it?

It's not like I have a mainframe tower serving my virtual machines to my dozen computers, nor would I want that.

When I travel, I might bring a handful of computers, and they all still work together with no need to tether to the home mainframe virtual machine server ( which may not be readily available anyway, depending on seasonal and location connection variables outside my control, or the home being down altogether and the reason I'm traveling ).

Virtual machines for end-users, in my experience, are becoming rarer considering remote working where people necessarily have a physical computer, and only need a common file- and interaction-server somewhere to coordinate remote users who used to be in one facility but are now spread all over - and I see cloud servers for the disorganized ( from Microsoft, Adobe, and so on ).

Perhaps those cloud servers can be on virtual machines.

That ain't me, yet.

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
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charliecat, Ok, tried it and found it was just as useless as the free version. Using the Dumo server only adds a google search list for you to pick from, while the manufacturer site one takes you to the front page of that site. Aside from it telling you that drivers are out of date I see no advantage of using this. I-obit driver updater is far more helpfull

Gosh, TK, there's a bit of speculation in your assessment, BUT ...

... it would be an interesting process to collect drivers into a crowd-sourced bucket in the cloud and retrieve each other's drivers from there ... a risk of malware infection, but a neat idea nonetheless ... probably would need extensive testing through VirusTotal and blocking of anything with hits, though ...

... and the vendor of any front door to that cloud would have to admit what they are doing.

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
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dpullum, thanks ! Feedback is welcome !

Deniz I.Çakır, hummmm.....
Why?
mario

Mario, two main reasons are:
1- It proposed to update 10 drivers. None of them needed update for sure. I double checked and saw it proposes unnecessary updates.
2- To see the software behaviour, I told it to update one of the drivers via producer. It led me Intel web page, not driver. I told it update via software itself, it led me to GOOGLE.

If you need advice for good (not perfect but good) driver update software, I use Snappy (https://sdi-tool.org/)

well...
my first answer to your negative comments, not even was accepted by my PC...
Now, after 1 minute, although I don't accept the denial, I'm good.
I chalenge all 4, maybe more, negative commenters to say why they negatived my comment!!!
mario

Deniz I.Çakır,
Hi Denis,
thank you for the answer.... Although I like most KCSoftwares products, for this one I only had a Lite version, not installed, - circa 2015...
mario

Mats H, please retry, should be ok now.

aussietaff, be sure to use the right NAME and CODE

In response to [ GeeksAlive ], who wrote, "... Snappy from a tech view ..."

... is the same old cringe-worthy Slim Drivers insincere spam/phishing under a new name.
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TAYLOR, DUMo is a Driver Update Monitor, not an automatic Driver Updater. It's much safer to keep user in the loop when it comes to system drivers...

TAYLOR,
Yeah. It's not really free. It only shows outdated drivers but no way to get them (for free). Even manually, which I'd be ok with.

TAYLOR,

Agreed. One I see no point in having.