What is a driver, and do I actually need to update drivers?
The small pieces of software that let Windows talk to your hardware. Why most of them should be left alone, the three that genuinely matter, and why the programs offering to update them all are the problem rather than the solution.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 25 min
- Read
- 6 min
- Safety
- caution
Short answer
A driver is the translator between the operating system and a piece of hardware. The honest rule is: do not update drivers as maintenance, only to fix a specific problem or enable a specific feature. The exceptions are graphics drivers, which are worth keeping current from the chip maker's own site, and printer and scanner drivers after a major Windows update. Everything else should come from Windows Update and be left alone.
Windows ships with generic drivers for most classes of hardware, which is why a fresh installation has a working mouse, keyboard, screen and network before you install anything. Those generic drivers are functional but plain — they run the graphics chip at a basic level, and they run a touchpad as a plain mouse without gestures or palm rejection. The manufacturer's own driver adds the features. That distinction explains most driver confusion, including the common experience of a Windows update quietly replacing a good driver with a generic one and taking settings away in the process.
Safety
Step by step
- Understand that a driver is not an application.It runs inside the operating system with high privileges, which is why a bad driver can crash the whole machine with a blue screen while a bad application only crashes itself. It is also why installing drivers from untrusted sources is more dangerous than installing ordinary software.
- Let Windows Update handle the ordinary ones.Chipset, storage, audio, network, Bluetooth, card readers. Microsoft distributes manufacturer drivers through Windows Update after testing them. For the vast majority of hardware this is the right and only source you need.
- Get graphics drivers from the chip maker.Intel, AMD and NVIDIA all publish their own, and they are updated far more often than Windows Update carries them. This is the one category where a home user genuinely benefits from keeping current, particularly for gaming, video work, or a screen that flickers or blanks.
- Get everything else from the machine's own manufacturer.Laptop makers customise drivers for their own hardware — touchpads, fan control, function keys, power management. Their support page, searched by the model or serial number, is the correct source. A generic driver for the same chip often loses the settings you care about.
- Update to fix a symptom, not on a schedule.The right trigger is a device misbehaving, a feature missing, a security advisory, or a new piece of hardware. "It has been a while" is not a reason. A working driver that is three years old is working.
- Know how to roll one back.In Device Manager, a device's properties include a driver tab with a Roll Back Driver button that returns the previous version. This is the correct response when an update breaks something, and it is why updating one driver at a time matters — you can identify what to undo.
- Recognise the generic-replacement pattern.Symptoms that appear right after a Windows update, where a device still works but has lost features — touchpad gestures gone, audio effects gone, a monitor stuck at a lower refresh rate — almost always mean a generic driver has replaced the manufacturer's. Reinstalling the manufacturer's driver restores it.
- Ignore every program that offers to scan your drivers.The business model is finding problems. They report normal, current drivers as outdated, install generic versions that lose features, and a good proportion bundle other software. Nothing they do cannot be done free from Device Manager and the manufacturer's page.
Common mistakes
- Updating every driver at once — If something breaks you have no idea which one did it, and the roll-back button only helps if you know where to point it. One at a time, with a restart, is slower and actually diagnosable.
- Downloading a driver from a site that is not the manufacturer — Driver download aggregators are a well-established malware channel, and the file has high privileges by definition. If the manufacturer no longer publishes a driver for your hardware, that is information about the hardware, not a reason to trust a stranger's copy.
- Assuming newest is best — Manufacturers occasionally ship a bad driver, and hardware that is out of active support sometimes gets its last good driver replaced by a worse one. If everything works, leaving it alone is a legitimate strategy.
If it doesn't work
A device stopped working after a Windows update
Cause: The driver was replaced — Fix: Device Manager, the device's properties, driver tab, Roll Back Driver. If that is greyed out, download the manufacturer's driver and install it over the top.
A device shows a yellow warning triangle in Device Manager
Cause: No suitable driver is installed, or it has failed to start — Fix: Right-click, uninstall the device, restart, and let Windows redetect it. If it comes back with the same warning, go to the manufacturer's support page for that model.
An unknown device with no name at all
Cause: Windows has no driver and cannot identify it — Fix: In the device's properties, under details, the hardware IDs field contains vendor and device codes that identify the part. Searching those codes is the reliable way to find what it is.
Blue screens naming a .sys file
Cause: A specific driver is crashing — Fix: The file name usually maps to a vendor — search the exact name. Rolling back or updating that one driver is the targeted fix, and it beats reinstalling Windows by a very wide margin.
Windows keeps reinstalling a driver you removed
Cause: Windows Update is supplying it — Fix: Windows has a tool for blocking a specific update or driver from being reoffered. Use it after installing the manufacturer's version, otherwise the two will fight.
Bluetooth or wifi has disappeared from settings entirely
Cause: The driver has failed rather than the hardware — Fix: The toggle vanishing rather than failing to connect is the signature of a driver problem. Uninstall the adapter in Device Manager and restart; if it does not return, install the manufacturer's driver for that model.
Questions people ask
Do Macs have drivers?
Yes, but Apple controls the hardware and ships them with the operating system, so users almost never think about them. The exception is third-party peripherals — printers, audio interfaces, drawing tablets — where the manufacturer supplies software, and where a macOS upgrade can break compatibility until they release an update.
Should I install the manufacturer's driver software as well as the driver?
Usually not. Many downloads bundle a control panel, an updater service and a marketing component around a small driver. Where an installer offers a choice, taking the driver alone gives you the hardware support without the background processes.
How do I find what drivers my machine needs after a clean install?
Install the chipset driver from the manufacturer first, then let Windows Update run twice, then fill any remaining gaps from the manufacturer's page for your exact model. Windows finds most things on its own now, and the remaining gaps show up as warning triangles in Device Manager.
Is a driver the same thing as firmware?
No. A driver is software on your computer that talks to a device; firmware is software stored inside the device itself. Some updates do both — a printer or an SSD can have its own firmware updated from the manufacturer's tool, and that is a separate, rarer, and riskier operation.