How to install downloaded drivers on windows 7. How to install drivers on a Windows computer. Simple instructions and helpful tips. How to check which drivers are needed
It is not such a frequent situation, but when servicing a large fleet of user computers, it sometimes happens that for some device the manufacturer has not released drivers for the required OS version. It could be old version OS, or old device. All in all. sometimes you need to install drivers manually. They are usually delivered in the form of several files. Most often they have the extension inf or sys, but they can be different.
The procedure for installing a driver in Windows 10 depends on how you install it. Each method has its pros and cons. The most important plus is that any user, from a beginner to a master, can choose the most convenient for himself, avoiding system errors and departure programs in the future. We will consider each method in detail separately. Remember that the most important thing is to use drivers from reliable sources so as not to damage the operating system and not accidentally launch a virus, the elimination of which will take much more time and effort than installing any driver.
What you need to install the driver
In order to install the driver manually, you need an installation disk or a special software which will guide you through the entire installation process step by step. Below we will consider one of these programs - Driver Easy. There are situations when, due to incompatibility, a driver with installation disk gives an error message. It is in such cases that we need programs that will help find and update the driver. In addition, this option will be more acceptable for owners of netbooks, which often do not have a drive. For such cases, there is an option to install the necessary driver from a USB drive, we will also analyze it today, since this method has its own characteristics.
Manual installation - instructions
Installing the Driver Manually Using Device Manager
1. Open the Windows 10 control panel by pressing the Win + X key (Windows key and X key) at the same time and left-click on the “Control Panel” item
2. For convenience, it is desirable to set up small icons.
3. Click on "Device Manager".
In the Device Manager window, expand the categories and find the device you need. Then click right click click on the device name and select "Update Driver Software". The photo shows an example of installing the driver network adapter Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller.
Installing the driver manually using Driver Easy
1. In the main window of Driver Easy, click on the driver for the device that needs to be updated. After that, you will see the standard task manager window, which was described above. Select a device to update.
2. In the pop-up window, you will see two options. Click Browse My Computer to install the driver software.
3. Click "Browse" to find the downloaded driver file.
Click the Down Triangle button in Driver Easy, then select Open File Location to open the driver folder.
For convenience, you can copy and paste the location of the downloaded files in the box.
The path to the file:
As you already understood, the update takes a lot of time and requires basic knowledge work with personal computer. In addition to updating manually, driver program Easy is able to automatically search, download and install all drivers that need to be updated. But, as we already said, this is not safe, since this function works in automatic mode, and in this case it is impossible to do backup in case of a major failure.
Installing the driver from CD or DVD
Almost all computer and hardware manufacturers supply a set of drivers for various hardware devices. For example, the driver CD that came with your printer contains drivers for many different printers, not just the one you purchased. When installing drivers, make sure you are installing drivers for your printer model and not another. Also, make sure you are installing it for the version of Windows that is installed on your computer. The process of installing a driver from a CD is no different from the standard installation process of any other program. Be sure to follow all instructions of the installer the first time you run it. In some cases, you need to uninstall the old driver before installing the new one.
If you have a driver CD but your computer doesn't have a floppy drive or it doesn't work, you can also download the drivers from a USB stick.
Installing drivers from a USB drive
After copying the drivers to the USB stick, you will be able to install the necessary software on your computer. Make sure the drive is connected to your computer, open Windows Explorer and find the name of your device in it. For example, if you have a USB drive that is assigned drive E: when connected, then you need to click on the icon named E: in order to open the contents.
Once the drivers are found on the disk, you must determine exactly how they will be installed on your computer. If the directory contains executable files or an installation file (extension *.exe), then you can install the driver using this file. If the drivers are compressed into a ZIP file, you will need to uncompress the file using archivers such as 7-Zip and WinZip.
Installing the inf file
If the recommendations above did not help you, then all instructions for installing drivers and hardware devices are always contained in a file with the .inf extension, which is located in the C: Windowsinf folder. The readme folder is protected and hidden. To make it visible, in the folder view settings, check the "Hidden Items" box. To find the information file for the device you need, follow the instructions below:
Open device manager;
Right-click on the selected device and select "Properties" from the menu
After that, go to the "Details" tab. Expand the list and select INF Name. The file name will be displayed in the "Value" field.
After you know the file name, return to the Task Manager, select the device, click "Update Driver" and specify the path to the * .inf file (in this example it will be C:Windowsinfoem3.inf)
Hello, friends! Driver installation. The question that worries the majority of the world's population after. What is a driver. Definition. A driver is a program through which the operating system interacts with computer devices. Without the corresponding one, the system does not know how to work with this device, and may not even know what kind of device it is. Therefore, the process of installing drivers must be taken carefully, otherwise you will not get pleasure from work.
In this article, you will learn everything you need to find, select, and install drivers.
- Installing the driver (built-in or)
- Installing the remaining drivers
Installing drivers from disk
Looking for a file setup.exe(or autorun.exe or simply run.exe may also be a file with the extension *.msi) and run it
Go to tab Drivers . We see the button at the top ASUS Inst All, when clicked, it will automatic installation drivers listed below. Let's take a closer look at this list and find that the trial version of the antivirus will be automatically installed in the same way. Norton internet security 2011 . It's easier to click install everything and if you are not satisfied installed antivirus- delete it.
If you want install drivers manually- I do this, select each driver separately and install following the instructions.
Confirm by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard. Click on the found product
On the product page, go to the tab Support
Click Drivers and Utilities
From drop down list select the installed operating system
You can see the result of the search in the figure below. First of all we are interested in drivers for Chipset.
Click on the link Global and download.
Intel Driver Update
You have successfully installed the drivers, but sometimes (once a year for example) it would be nice to update them. Manufacturers are constantly improving the software for their products, expanding their functionality and releasing new versions of drivers. Therefore, it makes sense to install them.
Check Availability new version drivers can always be found on the website of your computer manufacturer or motherboard. But you can, and it's much more convenient, take drivers from the official Intel website.
If you know your video adapter parameters, then you can use Option 1.
If you do not know the parameters of your graphics, then I recommend using Option 2. Click Graphics drivers
A window will appear with permission to launch the application. Click Run
Then another similar request will come out. Click the same Run
In my case, Smart Scan was unable to scan my computer. Tried on and on . Possibly because I don't have NVIDIA components on my system
If you have installed NVIDIA graphics card, then most likely you will be picked up a fresh driver and given a link to download it.
If Smart Scan cannot scan your computer, you will have to use Option 1. There you need to select the Series and Product Family. The operating system and language were automatically installed correctly for me. Click Search And Download now
Install the downloaded driver.
Finding and installing a driver by ID
Sometimes there are situations when there is no driver for the device. For example, drivers for the ASUS X55U chipset
Or have you found any device without drivers
In device manager it can be written simply - unknown device.
In this case, you can use the http://devid.drp.su/ service. There are also instructions for finding the driver.
Conclusion
In this article, we have dealt with the concept driver installation on the Windows operating system. There are two installation methods:
- using installation disks from devices that are usually supplied in the kit
- using the search on the manufacturer's website
We figured out how to update drivers for devices from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA.
We examined in detail the search and installation of drivers by ID on the drp.su website. The main thing is to follow the installation sequence. First drivers for the chipset after - whatever you want.
As I understand, OS through, it will slowly offer to install new versions of drivers. Therefore, you can install fresh drivers once, and then install all important and almost all additional updates.
I will be happy to ask questions in the comments. Thank you for sharing the article in social networks. All the best!
Best regards, Anton Dyachenko
The driver is called special program required by each device to interact with a computer. Such devices include the chipset (control circuit) of the motherboard, sound card, network card, video card, disk controllers, etc.
Windows contains many drivers for various devices required for the initial installation and startup of the operating system. But usually they are simplified and outdated, and some modern devices and are not defined at all and do not work. So after installing Windows first everything needs to be installed required drivers.
Hard Drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1TB2. Installing drivers from the disk
The easiest way is to install the drivers from the disk from the motherboard that came with the computer when you bought it. Insert the disc into the drive and wait until the installation menu appears. Windows 7 and higher may still require startup confirmation installation program from disk.
If the menu does not appear, then right-click on the drive in File Explorer and select "Install or run a program from media", "Open autorun ..." or something similar.
You can also open the disk in Explorer and independently run the file "Autorun.exe", "Setup.exe", "AsusSetup.exe" or similar.
But the previous method is better, since the system itself will launch the correct file.
The setup menu may have different kind. We are interested in chipset drivers, sound card And network card.
The first step is to install the drivers for the chipset and restart the computer. Then you can install other drivers. If you are not in a hurry, I recommend that you restart your computer after installing each driver. If you are in a hurry, then reboot after installing the driver for the chipset, and then install everything without rebooting, in most cases everything will be fine.
There may be many more on the disk. various programs and utilities, but usually there is no special need for them and they only slow down the computer. Therefore, I recommend installing only what you really need and you know how to use it. It is better to first look for information on the Internet for what this or that program is needed. Some of them are designed for overclocking and, if used incorrectly, can harm your computer.
3. Downloading drivers from the motherboard website
If you do not have an installation disk or the computer was bought a long time ago and the drivers on the disk may be outdated, then the best option will download the drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website.
If your computer is connected to the Internet via a cable or via Wi-Fi, then you should already have a driver for your network card or Wi-Fi adapter. Download this driver in advance, because if Windows does not have a driver for the network card, you will not get to the Internet.
If you connect via a USB modem, then the drivers for it are usually installed automatically when you connect the modem to a PC or from the supplied disk.
Please also note that drivers can be large (up to 1 GB), so it would be possible to download all of them in advance, especially if you have a slow Internet connection.
So, Windows is installed and we immediately go to the website of the motherboard manufacturer for drivers. On the site you need to find the section "Service", "Support" or something similar. But so that you do not search for a long time, I have compiled a list of addresses by which you will immediately find yourself in the right section. You can download this list in the "" section.
After going to the site, enter the exact model of your motherboard in the search field.
The model is indicated on the box and on the motherboard itself. You can also find out the manufacturer and model of the motherboard using the "CPU-Z" program, which you can also download in the "" section.
After the model is found on the manufacturer's website, you need to go to the "Downloads" or "Drivers" tab and select the version and Windows bit depth that you are installing.
A list will appear in front of you, in which there will be many different files.
Everything related to your motherboard will be here. These are BIOS and user manuals and various utilities. But we are primarily interested in drivers for the chipset, sound and network card.
There may be several versions of drivers, see the date and download the latest version for each device, usually they are on the top lines. In this case, all drivers have only one version. Moreover, there is no separate driver for the network card, which means that it is included in the driver package for the chipset. There is a separate driver for the sound card and controller driver AHCI drives. The AHCI driver needs to be installed only if the appropriate one was selected in the BIOS during Windows installation.
AHCI drivers have a positive effect on the stability and speed of the disk, but if your computer still does not work fast enough, install it and your system will become much faster and more responsive!
A-Data Ultimate SU650 120GB Hard DriveThen just download the files and if they are in a ZIP archive, then unpack and run the executable file. If the driver was already in the form of an executable EXE file, then you can immediately run it. The drivers are installed in the usual order. First the chipset driver and restarting the computer, then all the rest.
4. If there are no drivers for the correct version of Windows
If the motherboard is old and it so happened that the drivers for the right Windows version no, there are several ways:
- search for drivers on the chipset developer website
- installing drivers using Windows Update
- driver installation previous version Windows
- installing drivers using special utilities
- search and install drivers manually
5. Search for drivers on the website of the chipset developer
You can try to find a driver for the chipset on the websites of their developers Intel, AMD, nVidia. What chipset you have can be found on the motherboard manufacturer's website or using the "CPU-Z" program, which we have already talked about.
On the website of the chipset developer, the driver is searched in the same way as on the website of the motherboard. Links in desired sections chipset developer sites are in the "" section.
5.1. Find drivers for Intel chipset
Select everything in the search form as indicated below and click "Search".
In the search results window, select "Drivers" and the version of Windows you are installing.
Download and install the latest Intel Chipset Driver Update.
Select your chipset series and click "DISPLAY RESULTS".
In the search results window, make sure it is the drivers for your chipset and click "DOWNLOAD" ("DOWNLOAD").
5.3. Find drivers for nForce chipset
nVidia produced chipsets under the nForce trademark, and there are still quite a few computers with such chipsets. If this is your case, then go to the nVidia website, fill out the form and click "SEARCH".
I remind you that you can determine which chipset you have using the CPU-Z program (see paragraph 5). If for some reason you find it difficult to do this, then for automatic detection for your chipset, use the "MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS" button in the form shown in the screenshot above.
Make sure you find the correct drivers, download and install them.
6. Installing the video card driver
After installing the drivers for the chipset, I advise you to download and install the driver for the video card first. Thanks to this, it is convenient to install further customization screen resolution and the system will start working faster. Links to sites where you can download drivers for video cards are in the "" section.
If you have GeForce graphics card, then go to the driver download section on the nVidia website, specify your video card model, Windows version and click the "SEARCH" button.
Once the driver is found, click the "DOWNLOAD NOW" button.
Wait for the file to finish downloading and run it. Installation is quite simple, you only need to click the "Next" button a few times.
If you have a Radeon graphics card, then go to the driver download section on the AMD website, select the series that your graphics card belongs to, and download the driver for desired version Windows.
If you have more old video card and it is not in the list, then use the search on the AMD website. After downloading the file, run it. Installation is quite simple, you only need to click the "Next" button a few times.
7. Installing drivers using Windows Update
It happens that on the website of the motherboard manufacturer there are no drivers for the sound and network card for the required version of Windows. But do not rush, if the sound and the Internet are working fine, then Windows has installed its own drivers for them, and in this case it is better not to touch anything.
If something still does not work, then you can try to install the missing drivers using the center windows updates. To do this, click on the START button and go to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers. Right-click on the icon with the name of your computer or laptop and select Device Installation Options.
Set the radio button to "Install drivers from Windows Update if they are not found on the computer" and click the "Save" button.
After that, the operating system will start searching for missing drivers on the Internet and, if found, will automatically install them.
8. Install drivers from a previous version of Windows
If you could not find drivers for the desired operating system, then you can Windows systems 8 try to install the driver from Windows 7, and for Windows 7 you can install the driver from Windows Vista. In most cases, they are compatible, it is only important to observe the bit depth (x64 on x64, x32 on x32). These drivers need to be downloaded from the motherboard manufacturer's website, which we have already covered.
9. Installing drivers using the DPS utility
If you could not find and install drivers for some device or your computer is too old, then you can try to do this with special utility Driver Pack Solution Online (DPS). You can download it in the "" section.
This utility determines what devices you have, the version of the operating system, downloads the necessary drivers via the Internet and installs them. Launch the utility and click Install Manually.
I think this option is better, since it will allow you to abandon the drivers that have already been downloaded from manufacturers' websites and installed on the system. You can also disable the installation of unnecessary additional programs.
Check the boxes only for those drivers that you could not install in other ways. For example, I chose a driver for a sound card.
Go to the "Soft" section and you can select additional programs that you want to install. In principle, this is convenient if you have just reinstalled the system and you do not yet have the most necessary programs. I ticked off the programs that I consider useful and recommend for installation.
After that, click the "Install All" button and the utility will install all the drivers and programs you have selected.
10. Installing drivers using the DPS driver pack
Driverpack is a collection of drivers for a large number of devices. If you are often faced with installing drivers on various computers or you have slow internet, you can download full version"Driver Pack Solution" on a computer with fast internet, then use it to install drivers on any computer.
The disadvantage of this solution is the large volume of the driverpack (about 10 GB). Thus, to use it on various PCs, you will need an external HDD or a flash drive with a capacity of 16 GB.
Sandisk Cruzer
11. How to check if all drivers are installed
In order to check whether all the necessary drivers are installed, you need to go to the "Device Manager". This can be done in several ways.
1. Right-click on the "Computer" icon on the desktop or in the START menu and select "Manage".
Then go to the "Device Manager" section.
2. Click the START button and navigate to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Device Manager.
The first way is easier and faster.
If there are icons with an exclamation point in the "Other devices" section, this means that the driver for this device is not installed.
If the icons with an exclamation point are in other sections, this means that the driver is installed, but it probably did not fit and the device does not work.
In such cases, you will need to find and install the driver for these devices manually, which we will discuss next.
Go to Device Manager, right-click on the problematic device and select "Properties".
Go to the “Details” tab, select “Hardware ID” in the “Property” field, find the device ID in the format “VEN_xxxx&DEV_xxxx” or “VID_xxxx&PID_xxxx” in any line (4 characters will be instead of “xxxx”).
Write down these data or right-click on any line and click "Copy". Go to the "DevID.info" website and enter in search string Device ID and click Search.
Select your version of Windows and click on the name of the found device driver or the floppy disk icon.
Two driver formats are often offered - this is a repackaged "devid.info" file and " original file».
If you have fast Internet and you are not in a hurry, then it is better to download the "Original File", since there are fewer problems with its installation. If the Internet is slow or running out of time, then try downloading the repackaged "devid.info" file.
If you downloaded the driver in a ZIP archive, then extract all files from it before installing. If the driver is downloaded as an executable EXE file, then it can be immediately launched for installation. Installation is quite simple, you just need to run the executable file (such as "Setup.exe") and click the "Next" button or another similar button several times.
If the driver does not have an executable file, you will have to install it manually. To do this, in the device manager, right-click on the device for which you downloaded the driver and select "Update drivers ...".
Then "Search for drivers on this computer".
Click the "Browse" button, select the folder where you unpacked the downloaded driver file and click "Next".
If suitable driver will be found in the specified folder, then it will be installed and the device should disappear from the list of unidentified devices in the device manager.
13. Roll back or remove the driver
Sometimes it may happen that the driver you installed does not work or works worse. For example, background noise or clicks appeared after installing a driver for a sound card. In this case, you can roll back the driver to a previous version or remove the current driver from the system.
In order to roll back the driver to the previous version, go to the "Device Manager", right-click on the desired device and select "Properties".
In the window that appears, go to the "Driver" tab and click the "Roll Back" button.
If the "Rollback" button is not active or rolling back the driver did not help, then you can try to remove the incorrectly working driver. To do this, in the same window, you need to click the "Delete" button and confirm the removal of the driver.
After that, restart the computer and the system will again try to find and install the most suitable driver for the device. If the device does not work, try to find and install another driver using one of the methods we have discussed.
14. Do I need to update drivers
Manufacturers periodically release updated versions drivers that fix found bugs and improve compatibility with other devices and software.
Some enthusiasts like to constantly update drivers to latest versions. But, if you are not a fairly experienced user and your computer is working fine, then I do not advise you to do this. Since some problems may appear with updating drivers, and you may not have enough experience to fix them yourself.
The only driver that is recommended to keep up to date is the driver for the video card, as it adds support for new games and improves performance in older ones. However, also don't rush to update it if all your games are working well. Because games are always tested on older drivers during development, and newer versions of them can cause performance drops. Update the driver for the video card in the event that you have problems in some games.
15. Other drivers and installation methods
Drivers for other devices can be found on the websites of their manufacturers. If you know others good ways or programs for installing drivers, share them in the comments!
16. Links
Below you can download all the files mentioned in the article.
After installing all the drivers, I recommend doing it again on external drive. This will help to quickly restore the system with all drivers in case of failure.
Transcend JetFlash 790 8Gb
A-Data Ultimate SU650 240GB Hard Drive
Transcend StoreJet 25M TS500GSJ25M 500GB Hard Drive
Inoperability at the first connection or sudden stop of one of the available computer devices - webcam, printer, video card, audio card, etc. - may be caused by hardware or software failures.
Most often, the second becomes the cause of the inoperability of one or another PC component. And this is due to failures or complete failure of the device software - drivers. To restore the computer, you need to reinstall the drivers on Windows.
Let's consider two ways to install / reinstall drivers - standard (manual) and automatic (using specialized software).
Manual way to install drivers on a computer.
The process of standard software installation in Windows can be divided into three stages:
- Collection technical information about the device and operating system.
- Search for suitable software on the net.
- Driver installation.
At each of these stages, there is a possibility of difficulties, up to a malfunction or complete failure of the operating system. But this can be avoided if you carefully follow the further instructions. Let's analyze each of the stages of installing / reinstalling drivers.
1. Collection of information. If you try to enter search engine a query like - “Download driver for a webcam” - thousands of sites will be displayed in the search results, each of which will have the same number of links for downloading software. Our task is to find a driver suitable for the existing device and the operating system installed on the computer. And for this you need to narrow the search, and here it is enough to specify the device model and version of Windows.
To accurately determine the device model, follow these steps (you can skip if information about the device can be obtained from the documentation for it):
Launch the system application "Device Manager". To do this, call context menu above the "My Computer" or "This PC" icon, click on the "Properties" item, and then on the "Device Manager" item.
A window will appear on the screen with the following content:
First, try to automatically search for drivers by clicking on the appropriate item in this window. However, in most cases this results in a message like this:
It's okay - it's just that the system does not look for drivers in user folders, but does it exclusively in system directories. Especially for this, a manual search for drivers was provided. Run it by clicking on the item "Search for drivers on this computer".
In the next window, in the "Look for drivers on this computer" section, click the "Browse" button and select the folder where the unpacked driver files were saved.
Click the "Next" button to complete the installation. Next, you may need to restart the computer, after which the device should be detected by the system. Now let's look at the driver installation process automatically, for which we will use the modern DriverHub utility.
Program for installing drivers and subsequent updates.
DriverHub is a driver manager designed to install and update software from broad list computer devices. The program is completely free, suitable for computers under Windows control 7 and above (32 and 64 bits).
It is very easy to work with the program. Enough in a standard way install and run the program. In the main window of the application, click on the "Find Now" button.
Next, the program will scan the system, collect information about it and about the devices installed on the computer. This usually takes 15-30 seconds.
Bought a brand new laptop or built a computer, installed Windows and ... what's next? We went to the Desktop, and there is only the Recycle Bin. Even if you bought a laptop with installed Windows, then you still need to configure and install other programs. For what? To improve the performance of your device.
Everyone should have a list of programs that need to be installed immediately after installing the operating system. I have prepared my list. The programs below are suitable for most versions of Windows (XP, 7, 8 or 10). But, first of all, you need to deal with the drivers.
For those who have a pirated version! First of all, disable the "Firewall" and "Windows Update" - they are in the "Control Panel". Then activate Windows.
1. Driver
Drivers(or more "firewood") is software that is responsible for the performance and proper connection of other programs to the hardware of a computer or laptop, for example: Wi-Fi will not work without the appropriate driver, the monitor will distort the image (stretch, use the wrong resolution), there will be no sound etc.
Note A: In Windows 10, after connecting to Wi-Fi, the system itself finds and installs all the necessary drivers.
The first step is to check what is installed and what is not. Many people have pirated versions of Windows, and many people buy laptops with DOS(lack of an installed operating system) and then install pirated versions. That and when clean licensed Windows You still need to install drivers. But before that, you need to check which of them are installed and which are not. To do this, right-click on the shortcut My Computer > Properties > Device Manager:
If you have all the drivers installed, then there will be this picture:
If some driver is not installed, then a yellow exclamation mark will appear next to it:
There are three ways to install drivers:
From the official website of the manufacturer. For example, if ASUS laptop, then you need to search on the site asus.com.
From the disk that was included (if there was one at all).
With Driver Pack Solution.
Some drivers are automatically installed by default, which we do not need. For example, a standard driver can be installed on a video card, and then the video card will not work at full capacity, which will affect the graphics in games or when working in serious photo or video editors.
Most The best way driver installation- download from the disk (if it was in the box) or from the official site. Each driver is installed separately. The included disc usually only has drivers for one specific version of Windows. The best and optimal solution is to go to the official website of the manufacturer, find the “Drivers” item in the “Support” menu, select your version of Windows and install from there. In this case, you will get the maximum efficiency and performance from your device.
Rule: Always download and install drivers from the manufacturer's official website.
4. Antivirus
There are paid and free. Leaders among paid - Kaspersky, Eset,Dr. Web. Leaders among free - Comodo,Avira,Avast. I have a free Comodo Internet Security which fully copes with its functions. If you have extra money, then buy paid antivirus for a year. But protection is a must.
Telegram. Where do without him. Very useful and smart messenger. Must have.
Notepad++. Convenient and functional text editor code with support for dozens of programming languages and more. Syntax highlighting, plugins, themes, and more.
virtual box. A program that allows you to have two operating systems on one computer. For example, you can install Windows 10 as primary and Linux as secondary. The program completely virtualizes the presence of a second OS.