Windows XP Drivers

If you are using a PC in the course of your work or leisure time, then the chances are that you are using some form of Windows operating system, and, as it is still by far and away the most popular O/S, it is quite likely to be XP.

If you are using it on a desktop PC, then you will be working with additional external hardware like a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard. In addition, you may have additional hardware fitted inside your machine as well, such as a sound card and one that handles graphics.

None of these additional hardware devices will work in the way that they are supposed to do without what are called drivers, small pieces of software that enable each individual hardware device to communicate with or talk to your CPU and to each other whenever it is appropriate.

How To Update XP Drivers

The Windows support website does have some options available concerning updating XP drivers but there is a good chance you will need to visit each manufacturers website to locate each device driver manually.

The best way you can update XP drivers is to use a free utility called 'Driver Updater'. This handy software program will locate and update all of the up to date drivers for every device on your system automatically.

Where To Locate Windows XP Drivers

Third party hardware devices such as the sound and graphics card will generally come with their own driver programs on a CD when you buy them, or, if not, you will be able to download the driver from the manufacturers website. 

For devices that are ‘standard’ parts of your computer system like the mouse, keyboard and monitor, however, the necessary drivers are packaged within the operating system that drives your machine, so if you are using XP, there are XP drivers ‘bundled together’ within the system. 

Without these drivers, or if they become damaged or outmoded, then your external hardware will cease to function properly.

How To Fix Windows XP Driver Problems

If external hardware components that are attached to your PC cease to function correctly, the first thing to do is check the obvious possible problems areas like faulty of poor connections and lack of power where appropriate.

If that does not do the trick, then you can open up the ‘Device Manager’ to see what that tells you about the current driver status of the component that is causing your problems. 

By doing this, you may find that the ‘Device Manager’ itself indicates that a driver is missing or has become corrupted whenever this is the case, thereby indicating exactly where the problems lie. 

There is also a ‘Troubleshooter’ attached to the XP ‘Device Manager’ that you can use to try to fix any problems that you are having, although if your problem is a missing or damaged driver, this is unlikely to help much.

One of the biggest problems with drivers is that many people do not keep them thoroughly updated, and as most driver manufacturers update them at least once a year (ironing out many of the bugs from previous versions in the process) this is a common cause of driver problems.

If you have ‘Windows Updates’ set to download automatically, this should not be a problem, but as many PC users disable this feature, it might be.

The Easy Way To Update XP Drivers

As an alternative that will save you a heap of time and effort (and one that you can try entirely free) I would suggest that you take a look at the ‘Driver Installer’ that you can download here and try it.

This program will find every driver program that is currently loaded onto your PC (and with over 1 million drivers in the database, yours will almost certainly be there!) and then fix those that need repairing before updating all of them to the latest versions. 

As it does this for every driver you have, this will obviously be a big time saver, and, as time is money and you can try it for free, I would definitely suggest that you should take a look at the ‘Driver Installer’ right now.