Device drivers: without them, your computer is just a collection of parts. With them, your operating system can talk to your scanner, Webcam, printer, camera, cell phone, and many other components both inside and outside of your PC. In a perfect world, you would never have to give device drivers a second thought. But computers are far from perfect. That’s why problems with device drivers are fairly common. Read on for some solutions.
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bQ/b: When I plug something new into my computer, Windows offers to go online to find a device driver for it. But Windows never succeeds. Am I doing something wrong?
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bA/b: No. You’re probably referring to the Windows Hardware Update wizard or the Found New Hardware wizard, which appears when you plug in something new to your computer. Both wizards offer to connect to Windows Update to search for software, but the effort typically fails, especially if you’re using Windows XP or Windows Vista.
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This feature that rarely works is no secret to Microsoft, which has greatly improved this automatic driver search capability in Windows 7. Unfortunately, to get this working, you’ll have to wait for Windows 7 to arrive on store shelves. Until that time, you’ll have to have the sought-after driver on a disk or CD.
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bQ/b: How can I tell if my Windows computer is missing any drivers?
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bA/b: Generally if everything you typically plug in to your computer is recognized and working fine, then you probably have no missing drivers.
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But to be sure, you can open the Windows Device Manager. In XP, open the Control Panel and double-click System. From the resulting dialog box, select the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager. From Vista and Windows 7, just open the Start menu, type Device Manager, and then click the Device Manager entry that appears.
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In the Device Manager,…