These are pieces of software that your rig’s operating system uses to talk to its hardware.
Every operating system—from Windows to Android—uses hardware drivers.
The software is your operating system (OS) and any programs and apps you have installed on it.
Without any help, the software doesn’t know how to talk to your hardware and vice versa.
Imagine your OS speaks English, and your hardware speaks German.
Hardware drivers, then, are the language interpreter converting English to German and back again.
That’s true some of the time; chances are the manufacturer made your graphics driver, for instance.
But that isn’t always true.
Microsoft (and some manufacturers) provides universal drivers that anyone can use.
These drivers offer cost savings and consistency in performance across devices.
Your mouse, keyboard, and USB drives are likely using generic Microsoft-made drivers, for instance.
Some devices can use generic drivers but may perform better with gadget-specific drivers.
Regardless of who makes the driver, software developers take advantage of and use them.
The software developer doesn’t have to spend a ton of time reinventing the wheel.
Software sometimes uses multiple drivers to work with a equipment, passing the data through each.
To return to our language barrier example, imagine your Software speaks English, and your Hardware speaks German.
Unfortunately, the first machine interpreter on hand only speaks English and Italian.
That’s enough to facilitate communication.
Now, imagine a second interpreter arrived who spoke Italian and German.
By sending down the line through the two interpreters, eventually, communication would work.
The same basic concept takes place if multiple drivers are in use between software and hardware.
It’s also what breaks things.
Let’s go back to our language interpretation analogy.
Language translation is only as good as the worst speaker of a language in the chain.
The same occurs with machine drivers, but the problem is compounded.
And those problems can be magnified as they head down the chain, much like a game of telephone.
If all goes well, you’ll be none the wiser.
But software, drivers, and your hardware aren’t always smart enough to recover from bad data.
Your operating system may freeze or crash.
The best thing you might do for your machine is uninstalling the driver updater.
The truth is,you generally don’t need to update hardware drivers.
But most of your hardware drivers likely don’t need updating.
If a hardware driver is causing crashes, then your next step should be to check for new drivers.
But even in that case, don’t use the driver update utility.
The best way to refresh your driver isthrough Windows Updateor the manufacturer’s website.
Compare the latest version the manufacturer offers to the versionshown in gadget Manager.
Unfortunately, everything that makes hardware drivers work well also makes them a potential source of problems.
But usually, you don’t need to worry about them at all.
They either don’t need updating, or Windows will take care of it for you.
Related:Everything you oughta Know About the Blue Screen of Death
