Windows has gotten more and more thorough when it comes to detecting your installed hardware and then finding the appropriate drivers automatically. When XP was first released, the most popular hardware devices at the time had their drivers included on the Windows installation disk. Soon thereafter, users were able to leverage Windows Update to locate the correct driver – but this process was extremely hit or miss. The logistics of Microsoft maintaining all this were too severe.
Windows 7 actually does an excellent job today but it’s possible you will see come across an Unknown Device within Device Manager. You’re likely to come across such a situation if you’ve just done a clean install of Windows. If you are installing a new hardware device, you logically have a driver disk handy. Twelve months later, that disk is long since lost and probably leaving you with a few unknown devices. Hopefully you remember exactly what the hardware was so you can begin the driver hunting quest!
UnknownDevices is a free piece of software that can uncover the manufacturer and model number of all devices within the system – even if Device Manager is unable to do it.
Here is a clean install of Windows 7 with at least one unknown device – a Base System Device. Not very helpful is it?
With UnknownDevices it’s not very difficult to uncover the manufacturer as Ricoh. Specifically, the device is a memory stick controller – that must be my SD slot on the side of my laptop.
This is often just enough information to hit the Internet with and locate the drivers manually.
