The most daunting task after installing Windows is searching for and installing Windows drivers for your computer if Windows doesn’t detect them automatically. This becomes even more difficult if the network drivers are not detected automatically and you can’t connect to the Internet. I always recommend
3DP Net software for automatically detecting and installing network drivers in offline mode.
We tend to download the drivers from the vendor once and then keep them safe for installing again and again. If you have installed Windows 8.1, it will not let you install drivers which were used in Windows 7 or prior Operating Systems. Since Windows 8.1 is very new, there are not many companies which have provided drivers of their components and devices for Windows 8.1.
Automatically installing important system drivers
When we install Windows on a new computer, we want to get started as soon as possible. For this, we need at least the essential system drivers to be working. Essential drivers include network drivers, display drivers and sound drivers. For quickly installing these drivers, you can use two software:
3DP Net and
3DP Chip.
First download and install 3DP Net which will install your network drivers including LAN and wireless drivers. These drivers can be installed in offline mode. You will only need to download the 3DP Net software, install it and it will automatically detect and install relevant drivers.
After installing the network drivers, you will be able to connect to the Internet. Now you can easily download and install 3DP Chip which will automatically detect and install display and sound drivers for you.
Using SlimDrivers to download and install drivers automatically
SlimDrivers automatically detects and installs missing drivers and updates the ones which have been outdated. There is a handy scan option which will let SlimDrivers scan the system for missing and outdated drivers. Once the scan is complete, the user is given options to download and install required updates.
SlimDrivers also gives an option to backup and restore system drivers. You can backup all installed drivers and restore them whenever you want. You can also schedule for driver updates. SlimDrivers will automatically check for new updates and notify you if there’s a new update available.
Using DriverEasy to update device drivers
DriverEasy is a wonderful software which will let you automatically detect the components in your computer and search and locate drivers for each component. The free version of DriverEasy will be able to search for updates to the existing system drivers, download and install them one by one. Downloading and installing drivers with DriverEasy free can only be done manually. For automatic updates, you will need to purchase the premium version of DriverEasy.
DriverEasy was able to detect and update the components which SlimDrivers was not able to detect.
Backup, restore and print list of device drivers
Double Driver is a free and simple tool which will be able to perform functions like driver backup, restore and even print the list of drivers installed on the system. The software comes with a very simple user interface. Double Driver comes with a single window with all the options. You can click any button to perform the specific task like backing up drivers, restoring the backup, printing the list of drivers installed in Windows and clear log history which is displayed on the same screen.
With Double Driver, you can even take backups of drivers on remote systems which makes it a very handy tool for system administrators.
Since I had installed Windows 8.1 on my laptop, I have having trouble installing latest drivers for Windows 8.1. That’s why I have listed down all the tools that I’m using to keep my system updated. I have tested all these tools in Windows 8.1 and can confirm that they work perfectly on Windows 8.1
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