I’ve been a fan of and subscriber to the Driver Updates Web site at www.DriverAgent.com for over two years, and have found it to be a reasonably safe and workable way to keep PC drivers up to date. Because I run anywhere from four to seven machines at any given moment—the actual count depends on how many projects I’ve got going and what requirements my test machines must satisfy—this involves at least four hours a month of my time just in keeping up with changes, updates, and so forth. Whenever I build a new machine (to the tune of a dozen or more each year) or test a ready-made PC (to the tune of a couple of dozen notebooks and as many as a dozen desktops) ensuring drivers are current and correct is important for testing and benchmarking.

What I’ve also learned over the past couple of years is that downloading and running mammoth driver collections—such as the Intel or AMD chipset drivers, or various motherboard component drivers that include HD Audio, Networking (wireless and wired), USB root and regular hubs, and so forth—doesn’t always bring my PCs completely up to currency when I’m trying to catch their drivers up. Particularly with Windows Vista, whose superior file indexing technology pays handsome dividends when using Device Manager to update drivers, I’ve discovered a couple of supplementary techniques for improving my “hit rate” in making sure my drivers are up to date. Just in the past three or four months (it’s June 2008 as I write this) I’ve seen this kind of screen show up on the vast majority of my updated PCs, when applying the kind of method I’m about to relate.

There are two tricks I’ve stumbled across that have consistently helped me to achieve such results. Both start from the Update driver entry in the right click menu for devices listed in device manager, as shown here:

Selecting this menu entry lets you instruct Windows to search for a better driver on your behalf, as shown here:

1. Search automatically for updated driver software still takes a while to complete (waits of up to a minute, even on fast Internet connections are normal, while several minutes can easily slip by while you wait on a slower connection), but often produces useful results (at least compared to my experience with this option with Windows XP two or more years ago).
2. Browse my computer for driver software remains where the real action is, especially if you use a service like DriverAgent to help you locate and download the most current driver files onto your PC. Trick number one appears if you select this option, where you’ll find something interesting on Vista (you can get there on XP as well, but it requires a few more contortions)—namely:

1. 1. Things can get interesting when you click the Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer on Vista, thanks to its file indexing services. As the next screenshot indicates, selecting this option does a pretty good job of popping up nearly every potentially usable driver on your PC. Of course as that listing also indicates, the drivers must be labeled with version numbers and dates for you to really be able to tell them apart and to pick the right one. This is where DriverAgent (and similar services) provide a real value-add, because they will tell you which version (and date) you need to get the most current file—at least, from their perspective (but that’s a whole ‘nother story). On Vista, this approach will get you the driver you need in most cases, even if running the install files that DriverAgent tells you to doesn’t produce the desired results. Note in the screen shot that we had to scroll “hard right” on the driver listing to discover which ones were the most current (there’s a 5/2/2008 item lower down in the list that you can’t see in this screen shot, in fact).

    

1. 1. Trick Number Two becomes necessary when Trick Number One doesn’t succeed in getting you to the 100% rating (or as close as you can get, anyway). In that case, you’ll want to browse manually for driver files, which usually means into a C:\Program Files\Intel directory for Intel drivers, C:\Program Files\Nvidia directory for Nvidia drivers, and so forth. If you’re lucky, Vista will recognize a newer driver than the one currently installed and give you the option of installing it. If it doesn’t find something newer, you’ll see a screen like this one:
      
      If this happens to you, don’t give up until you’ve tried any and every conceivable directory where a more up-to-date driver might lurk without obtaining different results. In particular, I’ve learned to like the mega-downloads that come in ZIP files of late because when you unzip them they will usually deposit drivers that you may actually be able to use to update your PC. Even if the software indexing doesn’t find them (and in most cases it does), you can still zero in on these items by exercising some diligence and persistence.

You, too, can bring your PC to 100% currency, and with greater ease if it’s a Vista PC. Give it a try at DriverAgent.com