How to install the necessary drivers. Installing the driver from the archive

When purchasing a new computer or after reinstalling the operating system, the computer refuses to work normally. Most often, the reason for this is the lack of drivers. What exactly is a driver and why is it so important?

You should know that your computer is not one complete device, but a whole set of components. In order for the system to clearly understand what kind of device is in front of it and how to work with it, a special software. This is the driver.

It turns out that without drivers the computer will not be able to work. Therefore, it is imperative to install them. Some drivers should be installed automatically, but some drivers, especially current ones, must be installed separately.

Before we move on to installing important software, let's figure out how to find out about the need to install drivers. How to understand which ones are not currently installed. For this we need:

What are the drivers?

There is no clear boundary for dividing drivers, but they can still be divided into several groups:

• The first group is the system component driver. Simply put, the most important. For example, a driver for the normal operation of the processor or other important elements. It is better not to experiment with such drivers or touch them;
• the second is drivers for cards. First of all – drivers for video cards, sound cards and some others. They cannot be classified in the first category, because in some system units there is no video card, no sound card, or any other. As a rule, these are simple, office computers;
• third - external device drivers - Drivers for any gadgets that are additionally connected to the computer and do not affect its operation in any way, but only expand its capabilities. For example, a driver for a printer.

The process of installing drivers from disk

Of course, for such an important system element as a driver, there are several installation options.

The simplest and most basic way is using a driver disk. After purchasing a computer, you should have several disks left - from motherboard and from the video card (if you have one), at a minimum.

But it is not uncommon for disks with important software to be lost or damaged. And some computers don’t even have a disk drive. What to do in such a situation?

The process of installing drivers from the Internet

In a similar way, you can install drivers via the Internet. The difference will be that the installer will not be launched from the disk, but taken from the Internet. For this:

1. We write the brand and model of your motherboard in a search engine and go to the official website.

   

2. We look for the drivers tab there and go into it.

   

3. Download the software for your operating system and open the file.

   

4. Next, the program will identify missing drivers and offer to update them.

   

5. Left click on the downloaded archive.

   

6. In the open window, find and double-click the installation file. It may be called "setup.exe" or "install.exe".

   

7. The installer should then appear. Read the information and click on the “Next” button. The installation process is simple, read the instructions and follow the recommended steps. Once the installation is complete, restart your PC.

   

   

Note! A similar method can be used not only with motherboard, but also with absolutely any other device. On the Internet, as a rule, you can find drivers for any components and external devices.

Comprehensive driver installation

Step 1. Open the Start menu, write “Device Manager”. Click on the result shown.

Step 2. Right-click on the device name and click on “Update Drivers”.

Step 3. A window with two options will open in front of you.

On a note! In some cases, the system cannot find the driver, then you need to use a manual search. To proceed with this option, you must first download the required driver on the Internet.

1. Go to the website of the hardware developer, in our case the video card.

   

2. Click on the Drivers and Support tab.

   

3. There are three ways to find the required driver: automatic search; search form; Latest drivers available for download. We used the last option.

   

4. Find suitable driver corresponding to your system and download it.

   

5. Click on the downloaded file and wait for installation.

   

   

6. Return to Device Manager and select the second search option.

   

   

7. Click the Browse button and locate the driver.

   

8. Click Next.

   

9. After installation, restart your PC.

Finding and installing drivers using DriverPack Solution

You can install the necessary software quickly and conveniently using a powerful program - DriverPack Solution.

This is completely free application, which will automatically find missing or outdated drivers and install new ones. This is the program that many computer technicians use to configure devices. Over the years of its presence on the market, it has managed to prove itself to be excellent.

This is because installing drivers is very simple, because your participation in this procedure is not required. All you need is:

1. Download the DriverPack installer from the official website https://drp.su/ru.

   

2. Install it and open it on your computer.

   

   

   

3. Select automatic installation and wait until the program itself installs all the software necessary for normal operation.

   

4. After this procedure, your computer should start working fully.

Installing drivers manually using DriverPack Solution

To configure installation settings manually, do the following:

1. On home page program, click on the “Expert Mode” section.

   

2. You need the “Drivers” section, but before you go to it, you need to uncheck the software in other sections, which DriverPack offers additionally. Open the “Software” section, uncheck unnecessary programs.

   

3. Open the “Protection and Cleaning” section and uncheck the suggested software.

   

4. Return to the “Drivers” section, make active the sliders in the “Show alternative and installed drivers" and "Show additional information."

   

5. Check and install or uncheck the suggested drivers, if you are sure that everything is correct, click “Install all”.

   

Important! DriverPack Solution allows you to download a special image with drivers onto a removable drive and install drivers even on those computers that do not have access to the Internet or do not have a driver for the network card.

Video - How to install all drivers on your computer

Installation using Update Center

Is it worth updating drivers?

What if your computer is working fine, but you suddenly wonder if you should update your drivers.

If you are completely satisfied with the operation of your computer, it boots normally, does not freeze, and does not have any problems with connected devices, then there is simply no need to update drivers. There is no need to try to fix something that is already working properly, especially if you are not good at it. Along with useful software, there is a risk of downloading unnecessary software or even malicious software.

If you have complaints about the operation of the device, then perhaps updating the drivers to the latest ones will help solve the problem. But still, please note that updating drivers most often does not solve serious operational problems. To improve performance, it would be much more logical to improve the system by purchasing SSD drive or other new components. If this is not possible, then try simply cleaning the system of debris.

Rollback and removal

It would seem that updating drivers always brings only benefits and improvements in the operation of the system and equipment. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. In some cases, it is after updating the driver that a device stops working stably, degrades system performance, or even fails. If you find yourself in such a situation and think what exactly new driver caused problems, it is recommended to roll it back or remove it altogether. To do this you need:

After the rollback, the driver will return to its previous state. Most likely, after this, the system will function normally. Just like before.

If you delete the driver, you will have to reinstall it, but it will be a driver that will ensure full operation of the corresponding device.

So, we have learned how to identify devices for which the driver is not installed and install software for them. In addition, we learned when it is better not to update drivers and how to roll back to previous version drivers. Now you can safely configure your computer and additional equipment for it.

Video - How to find and install drivers on a PC or laptop manually

How to install drivers on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP?

What is manual or automatic installation drivers?

We will try to explain in a language that everyone can understand, without abstruse phrases and complex terms! The principle of manual, simple or automatic driver installation for the above operating systems is the same.

So, let's begin!

Automatic driver installation

You downloaded the driver from the site, it can be either in the form of an arj, zip, rar archive (simple archive), or in the form of a single file with the exe extension (self-extracting archive). A self-extracting archive (example installdriver.exe) is a startup file that already stores compressed files that do not require third party programs To unpack, you just need to run it, point to an empty folder on your disk that you created in advance, and the archive itself will unzip the drivers there.

A simple archive arj, zip or rar - in this case you also need to create an empty folder on the disk in advance and unzip all the files from the archive there, unzip it and not just run the archive, the fact is that often many novice users, after downloading the archive, just open it through “Start” or “Run”, while the archiver program simply shows the contents of the archive in the form of a list of files and any attempts to run something from the archive will lead to an error, so remember that the first thing you need to do is unpack the archive into a separate empty one you created folder, for this in the archiver program (for example WinRar) there is a button “Extract to the specified folder” or “Extract to” after which you simply indicate where to unpack the archive and wait for unpacking.

Now comes the most important part!

You unpacked the archive into a folder you created in advance, went into it and saw the setup.exe or install.bat file or any other startup file with a different name, just run it and the installation program will do everything itself, you just have to reboot the PC (if the installer does not will do it himself) and enjoy the working device.

Now let's consider the option when you unpacked the archive into a folder you created in advance, went into it and saw an incomprehensible set of several files with the extension inf, ini, sys and others, while there are simply no exe or bat startup files. This may be the case, the fact is that it is often difficult to find drivers for some devices on the manufacturer’s website, especially if it is already outdated, while installation disk you have lost the device for a long time or maybe it never existed at all, in this case resources that have a rich library of old but current drivers come to the rescue where they are usually stored in this form, that is, there will not be any installation programs in the downloaded archive There will only be the driver files that we now have to install.

Manual driver installation

We have a folder with several files. What's next?

1.Go to "Device Manager"

2. We look in the list for the necessary equipment for which you actually downloaded the driver; as a rule, a non-working or incorrectly working device is placed exclamation point, which is hard to miss.

3.Click on the device with the left mouse button, highlighting it, then click the right mouse button - a menu will open, select "Update drivers"

4.Apparent big window"How do you want to search for device drivers"

5. By selecting the top item “Automatically search for updated drivers”, Windows itself will find on the network (though not always) the driver needed for the device, this is “automatic driver installation”. But we need to install the driver we have already downloaded from our folder, so we select the bottom item “Search for drivers on this computer”, after which the “Search for drivers on this computer” window will appear, everything is simple here, click “Browse” and look for your folder where did we throw those downloaded drivers with incomprehensible files;), as a result, in the window we have the path to the folder with the files, click “Next”, now Windows will do everything itself and, if necessary, restart the system.

That's basically all, we sincerely hope that this little article will help you install the driver you downloaded and necessary equipment will work great and make you happy. Good luck to you friends and let everything work out!

If you have a question about how to install drivers on a laptop, there are several ways to complete this procedure: download the software from the manufacturer’s official website, use automatic search or manual installation from disk, or use the DriverPack Solution program.

Installation from the official website

The safest way to install drivers on a laptop is to download them from the device manufacturer’s website. In this case, they will definitely have current version and full compatibility.

But before downloading drivers, you need to find out the laptop model. You can view this information on the device body, on the battery, or using system tools - for example, command line.

1. Launch Command Prompt.
2. Write "wmic csproduct get name" and press Enter.

The command line window will display the device model. If you don't recognize it, you won't be able to understand what drivers are needed for the equipment to work correctly.

When downloading from the official website, one more condition must be met - Internet access is required. If after Windows installations the system lacks software network card and Wi-Fi module, then you will have to download the drivers on another computer or install them from a disk.

The site may not have drivers for all devices - this also happens. But this does not mean that they are not needed, because you do not have to install them. It's just that some drivers don't have a version for Windows 10.

Therefore, for example, if Windows 8 was initially installed on the laptop, then you first need to open the page with drivers for Windows 8 and install them all. Then you can go to the Windows 10 page and see what updates are available - usually there are few of them.

Installing drivers

If you have downloaded software for your laptop, it is also important to install it correctly, following a certain order. But before installing the software, create a restore point. If something goes wrong after adding drivers, you can quickly roll back the system back to a working state.

1. Windows updates.
2. Chipset.
3. Disk controller.
4. Integrated video card.
5. Discrete graphics adapter.
6. Sound card.
7. LAN card.
8. Wi-Fi module.
9. Bluetooth adapter.
10. USB controller.
11. Card reader.
12. Webcam.
13. Utilities for touchpad, keyboard (hotkey support), etc.

Typically, on the manufacturer's website, drivers are presented in the exact order in which they need to be installed. At the top are the most important drivers (for example, chipset), at the bottom are utilities that you can do without, and manuals.

The hardware software is downloaded in the form of executable files. Drivers are installed like regular programs; some require a reboot to save the new configuration. In any case, if you follow the installation sequence, no problems will arise.

Automatic and manual search

If downloading drivers from the official website seems too complicated, then try installing the drivers through the device manager from a disk or folder. With this built-in tool, you can find out exactly what drivers you need, and then install them from a disk or download them from the Internet.

The order is not so important here - just look at which device is marked with an exclamation mark. This designation indicates that the equipment needs to be installed or updated. How to carry out this operation correctly:

If you run an automatic search, Windows will automatically try to find out what drivers are needed, and then download and install the necessary software. When choosing a manual search, you can specify the specific location where the drivers are stored. This method, for example, allows you to install device software from a disk, if available.

In addition, some driver versions downloaded from the manufacturer's website may not have an executable file. To install such software, you will also have to use a manual search through the device manager. You just need to specify the folder in which the drivers are located to start their installation.

Application of DriverPack Solution

If you do not have the opportunity to access the Internet from a laptop, the automatic search does not lead to anything, and there is no disk with the hardware software, then use the DriverPack Solution program. This is a universal driver package that automatically finds out what software the laptop requires and then installs it from its database.

DriverPack Solution does not always accurately determine the type of hardware and may deliver the wrong software, but if you need to install a lot of drivers, then this is the best option. Errors, if they occur, can be quickly corrected manual update software through device manager.

After launching, DriverPack Solution tries to find out the models of devices installed on the laptop. Once the scan is complete, a list of drivers that need to be installed appears. A couple of recommendations for using the program:

• Turn on expert mode.
• Do not install all drivers at once, install them one at a time.
• After using the program, clean the startup list by disabling the application for automatic update drivers.
• Don't forget to check the functionality of the equipment.

If a device does not work, reinstall its drivers using one of the methods listed above. In any case, the priority will be to download the software from the official website, but an automatic search through the device manager will also work.

Typically, driver installation on Windows 7 occurs automatically and does not raise any questions for users. However, sometimes this procedure ends with errors appearing or does not begin at all. In this case, information on how to install drivers on Windows 7 becomes useful.

Manual installation

So, you have installed Windows 7 and now you want to install the necessary software for the correct operation of your existing equipment.

If you inserted a disk with drivers into the drive, but no window with the software installation wizard appears, you can open the distribution kit and force the setup.exe file to run.

The problem is that not everyone has disks with drivers, so you have to download the software necessary for the equipment to work from the Internet. You can install downloaded drivers manually using the following method (this is also suitable for disks):

The required software is installed. Check that the equipment is displayed correctly in the Device Manager, with the correct name and without any notifications.

Possible problems

Sometimes users are faced with the fact that drivers downloaded from the Internet are not installed in the manner described above - for example, there is no setup file with the extension *.exe or *.msi inside the package.

In this case, it is better to find and download other software that does not have similar disadvantages. However, you can go another way. Unzip the downloaded package of driver files. This may require Universal Extractor. Check that the archive contains a file with the extension *.inf. If it is, you will be able to install this software on the system. Connect your device and wait for Windows to finish detecting it. Go to Device Manager. Find the connected hardware, right-click on it and select Update Drivers. Select "Search this computer."

Click "Select from list of installed ones."
A window will appear with a list of categories. To avoid searching for the hardware you need, click “Show all devices.” Click "Have from disk."
Click the Browse button. Specify the path to the previously unpacked files. Find the file with the *.inf extension, select it and click “Open”.

During installation, a message may appear stating that the software is not digitally signed or has not been verified for compatibility. If you are confident that the driver is genuine and working correctly, ignore these notifications and continue with the installation.

After the installation is completed, a corresponding notification will appear. Click the "Close" button and check in the "Device Manager" that the equipment installed without errors.

A guide to installing drivers on a computer or laptop after installing Windows XP, 7 or Vista.

So, you yourself installed one of the operating systems on your computer using the guides:

The next step is to install drivers for computer devices, because without these same drivers, the computer will not fully function. Without a video card driver - games will not work without a driver sound card– naturally there will be no sound, and without installing the driver network adapter you will not be able to use the network and therefore will not be able to use the Internet. Therefore, installing drivers is important point which should be given no less attention than installing Windows.
First, you need to make sure for which devices Windows was unable to automatically find and install drivers. To do this, right-click on the “My Computer” shortcut and click “Properties”.

In the window that opens, click “Device Manager”.

In the next window we will see a list of all devices on the computer. Devices marked with an exclamation mark – without drivers. After installing the drivers, you will need to look through this list again; if there are no selected devices, then all drivers are installed correctly.

Next comes the actual installation of the drivers.
In most cases, disks with the necessary drivers are included with the computer or laptop being sold; as a rule, these are at least two disks: video card drivers and a disk with drivers for all motherboard devices. You can determine where it is by looking at the disks and finding on them the inscriptions VGA Driver - video card driver and Motherboard Drivers - motherboard driver. If these disks are not present, the driver installation procedure becomes more complicated; we will discuss this case in the next article. If you have disks, then you need to install the drivers available on these disks one by one. When autorunning from disks, click “install” or “Install”. Windows itself will detect the presence of the necessary drivers on the disk and offer to install them.
After completing this procedure, study “Device Manager” again. If no exclamation marks are found, then all drivers are installed. If they are still present, it means that some driver is missing. Firstly, the driver simply might not install and we will try to install it manually.

In Device Manager, right-click on the device we need and select “Update Driver”.

In the next window, select “Search for drivers on this computer”

Next, click “Browse” and in the window that opens, select our optical drive. Click “OK” and “Next”.

If the disk still contains the driver we need, then the system will detect and install it; if there is no driver, then you will need to find it on the Internet, preferably on the device manufacturer’s website. But to do this, you first need to determine the exact model of the device that needs a driver. We will write about this in the next article - Identifying devices and searching for drivers.