If you are wondering about the working process of device drivers in your computer. Then, this guide will help you understand what are device drivers, how they work, and how to update them.
Device drivers are a type of program that helps a computer communicate with the hardware that is connected with it. For a computer to work well, each device driver is very important.
Even though the drivers are small, they are very important because they control the devices that are connected to your system. Trackpad, mouse, keyboard, network, storage devices, graphics card, etc. are all examples of devices that need drivers.
Computer drivers are parts that a computer needs in order to be able to talk to and work with certain kinds of devices. They explain how the computer (its programs and OS) can ask the device to do something or talk to the device to get it to do something.
They also handle messages and responses from devices sent to the computer. So let’s get right to learning how system drivers work, what kinds there are, and how to update them.
Mechanism Of Device Drivers
Most of the time, device drivers run with a lot of permissions in the operating system’s runtime environment. Some device drivers may be linked right to the core of the operating system. The kernel is a part of an OS like Windows, Linux, or Mac OS that stays in memory and runs all other code, like device drivers.
Device drivers send requests from the operating system and the programs running on it to access hardware devices and do things with them to the hardware devices themselves. They also tell the operating system what the hardware devices are doing or how they are doing.
To access a device and do something with it, Device Drivers need instructions from the Operating System. After the action, they also tell the operating system how they reacted by sending the output, status, or message from the hardware device. For example, a scanner driver tells the scanner how to scan after getting instructions from the OS.
In the same way, a sound card driver turns the 1s and 0s in an MP3 file into sound signals so you can hear the music. Device Drivers are needed for many things to work, like a Speaker, RAM, USB device, video card, printer, network card, modem, controller, card reader, and so on.
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Process To Update Device Drivers
It is recommended by our IT experts that Windows users should always keep their computer drivers updated. Updated drivers will give your computer better compatibility with the devices it is connected to. Additionally, it will enhance your computer’s performance.
There are two methods which you can use to update your computer. The first one is the manual way in which you have to take the help of the Device Manager tool. The second one is the automatic way in which you need to download third-party device driver updater software.
Update Drivers Using Device Manager
Device Manager is a Windows built-in tool that allows you to update and reinstall your drivers easily. Although it is one of the safest ways, it is lengthy and a bit technical for normal users. But don’t worry with the help of the steps mentioned below you can easily use this tool.
First, let’s look at the steps to update the Windows drivers using Device Manager:
- Search Control Panel in the taskbar and then press Enter
- On the control panel page, click on the dropdown menu next to the “View by” option and select Large icons
- Now, look for the Device Manager option and click on it
- On the device manager page, one by one double-click on the devices that you are using to expand them
- Then, right-click on the drivers present under the device that you want to update and select Update driver from the option list
- A new pop-up window will appear, select “Search automatically for drivers”
- Now follow the on-screen instructions to complete the updating process
- Once the process is complete, Restart your computer.
Update Drivers Using Third-party Applications
This method can also be considered as the automatic process to update your Windows drivers. All you need to do is download the best device driver updater software on your PC. And it will automatically update all your computer drivers with just a single-click.
These apps comes with different tools and features packed in them. Some can take backup of your old drivers, others can boost your computer’s performance. Here are some of the apps to update your device drivers automatically.
- Quick Driver Updater
- Bit Driver Updater
- Driver Easy
- Ashampoo Driver Updater
A Complete Guide To Understand The Working Process Of Device Drivers
In this write-up, we explained everything about drivers starting from their importance to how it works and how you can update or reinstall them. We hope this post has helped you understand the drivers. And if you still have any queries regarding this, you can always contact us by dropping your comments in the comment box.
