Driver Detective

No one likes to reinstall their operating systems. It is not the process itself that people hate, but the aftermath. Finding and installing all those drivers is a tedious task and most of us would like to avoid it. With Driver Detective, you can automate the entire process. It will scan your system and display a list of your installed hardware, as well as the status of your drivers. You will know what drivers are out of date or missing and you can solve that issue by clicking a button.

The software's installation package is only 1.86 Mb large, so it will not take long to download. It can be installed without too much effort on Windows XP, Vista or 7. The system requirements are not high, so it can run even on a modest computer.

When running the software for the first time, you will be prompted to perform a scan of your system. It will take less than a minute and the results will be displayed in a list where you will be able to see your installed hardware, along with the statuses of their drivers. These are color coded, so it will be easy to see which are up to date, out of date or missing. The program will also display the total number of these types of drivers, as well as a colored pie chart. If a driver is missing or is out of date, you can simply select the device in the results list and click a large button, placed right next to it. The software will then search the web for the latest driver and it will automatically download and install it.

A series of buttons on the top edge of the interface will let you navigate through Driver Detective's different features. The Home button will display the same statistics regarding your drivers, as well as your system's basic information and account activity. From here, you can perform a new scan of your system at any time by clicking the large Scan Now button in the upper right area of the window.

A real time monitor can be activated from the Tools section. This will make the software run as a system tray icon and it can be scheduled to scan your drivers on a weekly or monthly basis. Another feature found in the tools section will let you specify what computer you are using. It is possible to select the machine's brand, product line and model from three separate lists, or you can just hit an Auto Select button which will scan your system and make the selections automatically.

If you are about to change your operating system, Driver Detective's Easy Migrator feature will come in very handy. It is a wizard which will scan your hardware and download the appropriated drivers for an operating system of your choosing. If, for example, you are switching from Windows XP to 7, you can select "Windows 7" from a drop menu, during the first step of the wizard. After a quick scan, it will download the found drivers and it will burn them to a migration CD.