Drivers from Windows Update

Hi all!

When I prepared to migrate to Windows XP Pro, I downloaded drivers for my hardware from the respective manufacturers site.
However, I never installed them since the drivers installed by XP-setup seem to work fine. That applies to mainboard, graphics, sound, NIC and monitor.

#1: Was that a wise decision or should I have installed the downloaded drivers?

#2: Now, Windows Update offers updated nVIDIA drivers. Should I download and install or should I refrain from fixing something that is working?

Thanks for Your time,
Christer

 

Hi Christer,

BillyBob is right

I had a similar experience with Matrox drivers - although the driver from the Update was WHQL it was by no means the latest. My understanding is that M$ charge a lot for certification which is the reason that many drivers are not digitally signed.

I stick with the manufacturers drivers - they should know more about their product than M$ who are really only interested in the compatability with Windows part.

The majority of the drivers supplied with Windows emanate from Microsoft, but not all. I am running the M$ Update driver for my NIC with no problems.

One thing you can always do - download the driver from update and install, then go into Device Manager and see who provided the driver. If it doesn't work as well as you would like use the roll back facility.

For video I only use drivers from Matrox - the WHQL ones are on their site too - I would suggest the same approach to Nvidia.

 

Hi guys,
thanks for Your advice!

From my initial post in this thread:

Do I understand the situation correctly in that I SHOULD HAVE INSTALLED the downloaded drivers?

I have disabled System Restore which means that I´ll have to create a Ghost Image immediately before installing any new drivers (or anything else that can go south).

Christer

 

I checked the device manager.

All drivers but two are Microsoft, dated 2001-something. Well, the Game Port driver is 1998-something ......

The two that differs are for the Scanner (HP ScanJet) which I installed myself in addition to the Printer (HP DeskJet) and the Keyboard (Logitech) which I also installed myself.

It seems to work though ...... ...... and I´m reluctant to install other drivers, having heard/read that it can cause trouble.

But I also want the best performance from what I´ve got ...... ......

Christer

 

Hi Christer,

My view - for what it's worth - others may disagree :

Use the manufacturer's drivers for specific hardware, especially video cards, monitors (generally profiles), most printers and scanners, sound cards if you have something above the Soundblaster basic - and sound is important to you, graphics tablets, zip drives (although the basic XP zip driver works somewhat better than Iomega's, although this may have changed), mice and keyboards, especially if they are not MS, and if they are MS Intellipoint, etc is not loaded by XP as far as I know.

Basically, if a driver comes with a piece of software - use it (and update it) in preference to anything MS wants to install on detection.

Many other drivers are generic - i.e you are unlikely to find a Windows CD-ROM driver on the manufacturers site - DOS maybe.

Motherboard and chipset drivers should always, IMO, be those that the manufacturer supplies and should be updated as and when. This is particularly true of mobo's with Via chipsets like my Asus A7V333. XP loads some sort of basic Via driver, but not any AGP drivers for Via - if I remember correctly.

Bear in mind that Via, Intel and M$ are not the best of friends although M$ is obliged to provide basic drivers for Via chipped mobos - probably through gritted teeth

At the end of the day it's your choice , but you can always switch on System Restore and make a manual restore point prior to loading any drivers - and if all goes well then dump SR again.

And of course you can always roll back the driver - assuming it hasn't totally fouled up your system.

In a nutshell you more likely to get best performance from a manufacturers driver than from the Windows one - for specific pieces of hardware. For generics like CD-ROM drives let Windows handle it.

 

Well, thing is, they are not MS's drivers. They are still from the manufacturer. But costs & time involved, it means that most of the time the drivers on Windows Update will be older versions, and the manufacturer may have newer (but non-WHQL certified) drivers...

 

Okey guys,
I´ll have a second thought but it is likely that I´ll install the downloaded drivers.

Thanks again,
Christer

 

Came to think of this when I saw reboots post:

When on WinME I had the option to decline a Windows driver install and install a different one.

This is, to my knowledge, more or less impossible on WinXP.

According to HP instructions, the DeskJet should be connected to USB when starting the driver installation. When I connected it, Windows beat me to it and I ended up with two printers ......

To beat Windows, I had to start the installation and when the installer didn´t detect the printer, it asked to which port I wanted to connect it and when given the answer I was prompted to connect the printer. Windows still tried to install it but was prevented (?) by the other running installation.

However, if I decide to install manufacturers drivers for the mainboard, graphics card, sound card, NIC and monitor, are the previous ones uninstalled or are they overwritten?

Should I do it from the Device Manager / Properties / Driver Update or can I just double-click the installation executable file?

 

I forgot to ask:

Do I need to have System Restore activated to be able to roll back the driver updates?

 

Yup - happens with Epson printers too - and is well documented on the Epson site.

Bit of a pain, but it's only a question of setting the 'right' printer as default, or, as in my case, selecting the 'right' printer as the Epson is for photographic images only and a (very) old HP does the general donkey work.

 

Well, since I wanted my installation as clean as possible, I didn´t accept that. What if I buy a new printer and want to uninstall the previous driver in duplicate with double entries in the "add/remove ....." dialog?

Since I had other problems during the installation, prompting a "roll back" using an intermediate Ghost Image, I tried to "trick" Windows and I succeeded ...... ...... (I guess BillyBob must have liked that).

What about the other questions?

and

Sorry for repeating myself but I´m worried that You missed them!

Thanks,
Christer

 

Christer,

IMO double-clicking the *.exe file is the best move on the basis that this decompresses the driver - and other files to a specified location on the HD. Update driver will be looking for a *.inf file which will not be 'visible' until the *.exe file has been run.

Once decompressed Update Driver can be pointed to the *.inf file, but it is far easier to run the setup.exe file - especially as these driver packages often contain far more than just the driver. I'm thinking here of Matrox driver packages which install not only the driver, but also some applets (Powerdesk, Help Files, etc). Driver Update will not do this.

Re. the printer question - it may be possible to fool Windows - it fools us enough , but the entry in Add/Remove Programs is only the manufacturers software - there are not duplicate entries.

The Wiindows driver only comes into play when the printer is switched on. I have tried to remove the Windows version by removing the printer under Printers and Faxes, but it re-appears - new hardware found .... each time you switch on the printer. As I said it is a well documented fact - for Epson at least.

 

Pete,
when updating these drivers while on WinME, double-clicking the *.exe file did not only start decompressing but the installation was automatically started. I was worried that WinXP would object to doing it "the easy way ".

Well, I had duplicate entries ...... I´m sure of that. I uninstalled both, one after the other. The printer was connected to the USB port but not turned on. As soon as the second uninstall was completed, Windows detected the new hardware and installed it ...... talk about being stubborn. That´s why I had to find a way to trick Windows.