Convenient way to check Windows 7 hardware for driver updates?

Question

I will not list the make and model of my laptop as I want this question to help others and not be specific to me. However, this is for Windows (specifically Windows 7).

I found a program This program lists all the drivers on your computer that lists all the drivers and their company. 184 out of the 215 drivers are Microsoft drivers, so I am assuming that these get updated via Windows Update. But the remaining 31 drivers are up to the user to maintain and keep up to date.

I am wondering if there is a capable and praised application, or convenient "superuser" type method out there, that looks at all the hardware and drivers and checks to see if there is an updated version for them, and points/provides the link to the drivers download. Besides that, the only way I know is to try googling the driver, looking for the operating system specific version of it, and seeing if the most recent version is higher than my installed version. This is tedious, and is not something that can be kept up with daily. Therefore, from my knowledge,there is no way to know exactly when a new driver update comes out, until I do the google check, which could be days weeks after the update came out.

If anyone has a convenient method, or knows of a program (paid or free, as long as it is capable), please let me know!

Thank you for any help.

Answer 1

Microsoft's Windows Update is generally the best method for keeping drivers up to date. There are some caveats though. With drivers that are updated often, like video drivers, the manufacturers do not submit the drivers to MS for WHQL certification often, and therefore do not get updated by Windows Update. This means the "up to date" driver you received from Windows update is the latest Microsoft certified driver, not the latest from the manufacturer. AMD, NVidia, and other manufacturers that update their drivers often, have their own driver update software that you can use to keep their drivers up to date. If a manufacturer has their own driver updater, its best to use that, or just check their sites.

I stay away from 3rd party driver updaters. Some are outright malware, while others may work, but you do not know if their sources are correct or up to date. I have seen some 3rd party updates incorrectly detect a device and install the wrong drivers. This can be a PIA to fix. IMO, 3rd party device drivers software is not worth the headaches.

Answer 2

Particularly like to search for drivers manually using the vendor ID and device ID. But when i do not succeed, use the site ma-config.com/ besides being simple, it's free.