DriverScanner

Sooner or later you can count on your software drivers becoming outdated. Sometimes you don't notice this until the laptop or PC begins to slow down or displays error messages when new software or hardware is added to the system.

If you've ever had to search for updated drivers then you know what a pain it can be. Links break, sites go down, businesses get acquired, etc. Then if you can find the right site, it may take forever to find an old driver or to figure out if they have updated it. Worse yet is when you send an email to technical support at some site asking for a new driver and they haven't a clue where it can be found. These are all real life experiences I have had over the past 30+ years of using a PC.

So along comes Uniblue who claims they have a solution to make this whole driver management and update process easy as pie. Sure they do, I think. But I'm game and I give it a whirl.

DriverScanner is a quick install and an intuitive tabular interface. You have an option to run a scan of your system, backup drivers, restore drivers or review settings. The software is easy to navigate; you can't get lost. The language used is easy to understand, and its use of tables, icons and buttons to present driver information is also simple to read. You can't get lost or makes mistakes with this tool.

Once loaded, DriverScanner does a scan of your system. It's pretty darn fast, too. Then it presents you with a summary of the number of out-of-date drivers found as well as the availability of updates. It also rates the level of risk if you choose not to update the driver. That is a good feature. Let's face it, sometimes you are not in the mood to jack with your system. If the risk of installing a new driver is "R" for Risky then you know you might want to avoid that one. If the risk is "S" for safe then you can go ahead with no risk.

The Download Driver button enables you to download the new driver from within DriverScanner. That's convenient. A progress bar shows you how the download is coming along. Once downloaded, the button changes to an Install Driver button. Click to install. That was easy.

DriverScanner warns you that all drivers are capable of causing issues, and you can use the built-in back-up driver function to back up all of your drivers at any time. If an installation fails, you are warned and given a chance to report the failure. If something fails to work properly after an installation it a quick and painless click on the Restore tab to reset the driver to its previous state.

So my advice is this: if you want to manage your drivers better, you need Uniblue's DriverScanner. It's inexpensive, easy to use, and performs its job admirably. They offer a free scan you can try on their site, but you need to purchase the product to download the drivers. Please click here for a free drive scan.