Device Drivers

Hi

Multiple ways, but to do it properly and not have many if any issues is to always download drivers from the actual maker of the PC if a bought one from the likes of Dell, HP ,Sony etc as they in the main source customised hardware that does run better with the drivers off their support site for the model of PC you have.

If a custom build PC then the Motherboard maker in the likes of ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI etc are the place to get the drivers from.

If using a add on graphic card and not an onboard one, them the maker of the card or the chipset is best, so main two are nVidia and ATi. Other installable peripherals like Network cards, modems, Card Readers etc, get the drivers from the maker of the hardware.

Can use the Driver Scanners, but I would strongly advise not too as they dont always search or scan the accurate driver for your hardware as there are too many permutations to customised drivers for them to accuratly get it 100% right, which is why I see many many PCs with driver issues after running and installing the drivers that Driver Scanners find, so while the first part of my reply would take a little longer to get the correct drivers, it would save you any troubleshooting steps to fix an automated scanners options.

 

Oh didnt see the "to" oops! read Device Drivers as drivers, over routes to Device Manager or drivers.


Device Manager
Computer Managment but that loads up Device Manager in a snap-in
Add/Remove (some not all)
Regedit (registry holds driver information, or at least information, dlls etc for some drivers)... not so sure on this one 100%
3rd party software (Everest etc)

Manually browsing to any of the 3 below as they can all store device drivers, so Windows Explorer is the place to navigate from.
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS

Maybe for me the question is lost in translation, so whats your 3 options, maybe it will give me a clue? as well as what Windows version or type are we ment to be looking at.

 

Ah now I got you, in part depends in the version of Windows used.

Your two are good for XP, another few for XP are
Click Start > Run and type devmgmt.msc (can do same from Win Vista and 7s Start Search Box or Run box)
Hold down the Windows Key and press Pause/BK (Pause Break key)

Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Click Start > and type "Device Manager" in the Start Search box