How to update and install drivers on your PC easily

Updating and installing drivers on your PC can be a very simple task, but also a huge headache, depending on your system, which software you need to update and several other factors.

Although some very efficient software has been released for finding and installing the latest driver updates in recent years, this article will also show that in many cases it is possible to do everything without the need to install anything other than good old Windows. Let's go!

What are drivers for?

If you have never delved into installing anything on your PC, “drivers” are essentially a program that makes the software talk perfectly to a specific piece of hardware.

Giving a more practical example, let's say you bought a new PC with a video card from NVIDIA, any model from the 4000 line. In theory, any game should run at least as well, right? But that's where the role of drivers comes in. The video card (hardware) can be super powerful, but if its driver (software) is in a version that is not compatible with something in the system, we will experience errors, lack of performance and many other things.

That's why it's important to buy known parts and models so that you can easily find a driver, whether directly through Windows or through the manufacturer's website.

Install or update drivers through Windows Update

Whether for good or for bad, the Windows Update does its service of updating almost everything we have in the system. You can do a test in your home now and go to settings and then Windows Update and then check for updates. If you haven't done this for a while, you'll probably have an update, whether it's the Windows system itself, or the main system drivers.

The problem encountered with this update format, at least in my experience, when we talk about drivers, is that it is not very intelligent and with a somewhat questionable protection measure, sometimes insists on outdated versions of drivers, or simply does not recognize that there is an improved version of the driver for that program.

Regarding this solution, consider that it will always be available and should only be dispensed with if it prevents you from updating something, such as a newer version of Bluetooth, for example, causing your devices not to be recognized.

Update Drivers via Device Manager

O Device Manager It's the Windows user's playground. Here, you have access to all your devices, such as mouse, keyboard, video cards, processors and even USB and headphone inputs.

Despite giving you all this access to the devices, to touch the drivers, we don't have anything automated here. Whether installing, uninstalling or updating, you need to do everything manually. How to do this?

Right click on the Windows icon and then choose Device manager. From this huge list that appears, just choose the device you want to use. When right-clicking, the option to update driver will emerge, as will disable e uninstall device. These options are valuable for when you need to “reset” a driver and have everything installed again.

If you go to Properties, in the option of driver, it will have all the version details, but better than that, it can even roll back a driver to the previous version, if the new version is bad.

Install drivers manually

This topic has two sides. One involves working with what you learned in the previous topic, but using another function, available in properties of devices. The second option is to go to the manufacturers' websites or apps to ensure that each of their apps is up to date with updates.

For the first, open the Device Manager, choose one of them and then go to properties. choose option Update driver And then the game gets interesting. We have the option to update automatically, but this often doesn't find what we want. On the other hand, if you went to the manufacturer's website and downloaded the driver you are looking for, you can select Search for drivers on my computer. Find the file in the folder where you downloaded it and here, you will probably have updated your app with a better driver.

Likewise, instead of searching for loose drivers, you can see if the manufacturer offers an app for them. In these cases, the app will always inform you when there is a new update.

Use winget to install, update and even delete drivers and programs

I admit that the name winget It took me by surprise the first time and I thought it was a lie. The good news is that this is one of those life hacks that everyone needs to learn and know how to use, after all it is incredibly useful.

Something important to say about this method is that it is basically using the CMD (Command Prompt) in Windows, but don't worry, you don't need to know anything about programming to carry out the procedures. All you'll need is to be the Administrator of your Windows and follow the steps here.

Winget is, as I said, a command line tool to be used by CMD. Starting with the most recent versions of W10 and any version of W11, it is already installed on the system. Knowing this information, what you need to do now is just press the Windows key, type CMD and open it as Administrator.

After giving “yes” to allow the use of the app, type “winget” in the command line, where you will see all the app's possible functions. That's where the magic happens. You can install, search for apps, updates, show everything installed, export and import data. It really is a complete tool.

As an example, let's say you need to install the WinRAR on your PC, open CMD as administrator and type winget install winrar. This will make it look for the app and install it on your machine and if it is already there, it will look for an update.

However, the most important thing for our objective here is to update the drivers for everything we have on the PC. To do this, type winget upgrade. This will give you a complete list of all apps with available updates. To update, just type the command winget upgrade –all. If you opened the app as Adm, CMD will do all the work for you without questioning anything, so remember to confirm this.

the nicest of winget is that in addition to updates, you can import and export lists of apps to facilitate their installation on other PCs, perfect for when formatting yours, buying a new one, or when installing on a large scale, such as in a company.

Applications to update drivers

Last but not least, we also have software focused on updating your PC's drivers. Although they are very useful, they can become a bit annoying as they force you to pay for the full service, such as installing all the drivers found at once.

Driver Booster

This app IObit It is perhaps the most famous when we talk about updating drivers on the PC. Its main focus is to allow you to update your PC's drivers quickly and efficiently. In the free version, you will be able to check everything and even download it, but with some limitations, such as download speed. Check out the main differences:

DriverIdentifier

As its name suggests, the DriverIdentifier, unlike Driver Booster, will only identify everything that is not updated and list them with links and downloads. Although very efficient in searching for drivers, it is not practical to install them.

Since it's completely free, it's worth installing it and running a system scan. If your PC only needs one or two drivers to be updated, it's worth using the DriverIdentifier as your partner here. Now if you have a lot of items to be updated, then you will only have a headache using this software. You will spend more time downloading files than actually updating anything.

At this point, I believe we've already shown you good options to help you update your PC's drivers, right? I hope this article was able to help you in some way, but remember that you can always use the comments field to suggest changes and even more content.

You can also check out our other texts on the website, such as our tutorial how to activate temporary messages on WhatsApp.

reviewed by Glaucon Vital in 23 / 1 / 24.