What are the drivers? why do we need them? Well, the basic explanation is that the operating system needs to be able to recognize the devices you are plugging into the computer. The Idea is
that in order to work properly with the devices that have been plugged in, the operating system needs to know what it is, how to work the device, and how to enable you to use it by giving you the tools to access and operate it properly.
The explanation is nice, but let’s give an example:
When you plug a printer to the computer, the computer needs to know it is a printer, so it will know that when you press the PRINT order, it will show you that you have a printer, and will know how to process your order, and direct the order into the device, and print your paper. The negotiator between the operating system and the device is called a “DRIVER“, or a “Device Driver“.
The driver contains the information that the operating system needs, to recognize the device and know how to use it, what it qualifications and abilities so you will be able to utilize them efficiently. Each operating system needs its own suitable driver, that is why
drivers are so important, without the proper driver you will not be able to operate the device you have connected to your computer.
Operating systems are getting smarter and more efficient, they will have a huge data bank of default known device drivers, already included as the operating
the system gets updated with common drivers, which are mostly being used (like Intel CPU‘s, sound cards, video cards, LAN network cards, etc…) so when you will install the operating system, most of the devices will be automatically recognized and operational.
- What happens when you need a driver and it is not automatically recognized?
Well, then the procedures are as follows:
- You should get the driver installation disk for your devices, as you buy them – this means that when you buy a new computer, you should get a disk for all of the device drivers of the motherboard (for all of the devices that comes on-board the motherboard. Any additional devices – like a separate graphic card, needs to come with its own driver installation disk.
- When you attach a device, and you don’t have a disk, you should know the device’s vendor (the company that developed/created the device). Then you go to its website and seek downloads, where hopefully the drivers are as well, and you can download the proper driver from there..
- When you buy a laptop – usually all of the device drivers will be at the vendor’s website. Like, Dell Laptops, you can go to dell.com and at the bottom you
can see “drivers & downloads”, you will just need to choose your laptop model, and you are all set.. - Sometimes you are originally buying your computer with a certain operating system, like Windows XP. Now you want to install Windows 7, and you have initially got drivers with the computer that suits Windows XP, so all you need to do, is follow the same stages as instructed on section 3 of this post (Buying a laptop) 🙂 go to the vendor’s website, into its “drivers & downloads” and choose a different operating system (Windows 7) and download the proper drivers.
Even though I mentioned drivers for windows, since it is the most common operating system still, there are drivers for all of the different types of operating systems, like MAC (Macintosh), Linux, etc… The procedures of finding a suitable driver are the same for all of the operating system types.