How in the Tech

Keep your drivers fresh with Device Doctor

By Adam Myers ⋅ February 23, 2010 ⋅ Tags: System Administration

Microsoft has gotten immensely better at aiding users in keeping their system drivers current. Through Windows Update, Microsoft often pushes out updated video or printer drivers for devices detected on your computer. This one-stop shop is quite handy and chips away at the level of geekery needed to keep a system performing optimally. Unfortunately for many, not all vendors drivers are available through Windows Update. For these companies you must visit their website directly, search and locate your piece of hardware, then download and install the latest driver release – that is if you even remember to check for newer drivers! Certainly the adage of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it applies to driver upgrades – but that doesn’t stop a lot of us.

Device Doctor is a free Windows application that can scan the current computer and then display information and download links applicable to the hardware detected. If Device Doctor finds a later iteration of your video card drivers, it provides a mechanism to download the latest immediately. In testing, the software found updates for my network card, sound card, and monitor. Generally speaking, these are all relatively safe to update but you should be warned that other devices can prove to be more troublesome to update than they are worth – chipset drivers for example.

Some may hasten to point out that a free utility such as Device Doctor is quite ironic in that users that have the knowledge and gumption to update their drivers don’t require the software itself. I would suggest otherwise, Device Doctor is an excellent way to supplement the process of maintaining a stable system. Running Device Doctor, perusing the results, and then deciding whether the upgrade is necessary is quite a bit easier than going to each individual manufacturers website and ascertaining whether an update is available.

Download Device Doctor