Driver Detective

timwinters

timwinters

Ejection Handle Pulled
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Feb 23, 2008
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LTD
Recently, and quite by accident, I ran across the "Driver Detective" program and, for grins, downloaded it onto my older laptop. It scans the systems and lets you know which drivers are current, which ones are out of date (it listed 29 out of date on this laptop), and apparently it allows all outdated drivers to be updated in one fell swoop.

Of course, the free version only analyzes and it's something like $20 for a one year license to use the automated download/update feature.

Questions for the computer guys/gals:

Is this a worthwhile program?

Can one license be used on multiple machines?

Are there other programs that are better than this one?

or

Are there other/better ways to ensure drivers are kept current?

Am I a moron for even considering it?

THANKS!
 
If the system is working fine, why update the drivers? You'll probably just end up with issues you didn't have before. Driver updates are less important from a security perspective on your average home computer. Worry about system and software updates instead.
 
jesse said:
If the system is working fine, why update the drivers?
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know...I just assumed that updated drivers would be more efficient and/or debugged, etc. But, not being a computer guy...I don't know!

Just seemed like the thing to do. :redface:
 
timwinters said:
Well, I don't know...I just assumed that updated drivers would be more efficient and/or debugged, etc. But, not being a computer guy...I don't know!
Click to expand...
They might be - but they also might cause other problems. If you don't have any problems to begin with I wouldn't worry about it. If you really want to update your drivers you can get them from the manufacturer without having to pay some middle man for software that probably doesn't work.
 
A long time ago in a far off land...

...so they guy decides to update the BIOS. Nobody told him that the floppy drive was bad. What do you think happened when he put the BIOS update on 3.5" floppy and set the boot flag to "Boot from A:" ?
 
The first rule of Production computer systems... you don't patch things that aren't known to be causing problems.

Drivers are little bits of code that operate peripherals. If the peripherals are doing everything you need, and there's no security or other problems with your drivers, leave them alone.

If you're looking for something that actually helps your system security, Secunia PSI is excellent on Windows machines. And free.

It'll look at everything you have installed and give you a nice chart of security issues and can also download and install patches/upgraded versions of things it found to have problems.

It's pretty well regarded by professionals. There's a lot of scary stuff out there that isn't.
 
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