Driver Genius Professional 16 (PC)

Helped enormously in restoring a ten year old 17.3 inch hp dv7 laptop. There is a later version. Good price.

* Introduction

As Windows 10 is having updates left, right, and centre, I want to update my computer’s drivers to lessen the chances of failure when these newer updates are applied. My brother put me on to this utility a few years ago. But I misunderstood just how many drivers are included in Windows, I thought of only in terms of Video drivers! So it’s only when I reassessed just how many drivers are used in Windows and the paramount need to apply these updates to reduce the possibility of potential conflicts and crashes. This automated utility is compatible with Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10 in 32 or 64 bits form.

If you have a computer of a few years old, then taking a year to collect its updates is the way you will experience the collection and installation of drivers. If however, you apply this utility to a computer that’s four or more years old, then you will collect most of the drivers in one or more go. It works by applying ‘Plug and Play’, technology to steer the search for drivers. This started in Windows 95 and has come on in leaps and bounds since.

It’s possible to undertake the updating of hardware devices using nothing more than the internet and your computer complete manifest of the hardware equipment you’re using, but why do this manually when this utility is helpful and do it for you? This utility is a lot quicker to do the same job!

* Medium used

I chose to have a Cd disk rather than download. Just to have a disk in my hand. The postage only took 2 days.

* Installation

I installed the software on my PC administrator account by placing the CD in the drive and clicked on ‘start.exe’ shown in File Explorer. Then entered my details.

* Re – Installation / Issues

It came to pass that I needed to reinstall this utility to repair issues connected to backing up all my computer drivers. It’s just stalled and did nothing for several minutes. Watch out for a Mobius loop to install needing another reinstallation.

I have been unable to install an updated video driver this utility discovered and has let me down on several occasions. It seems that I need to turn the anti-virus off and turn off the firewall to complete this task. Then following its installation of the video driver, turn both the antivirus and software firewall back on as normal.

Please note that when this utility has installed all the driver updates it can and it’s not finding many more to update, then uninstall this utility. Why? It installed a newer driver, but of VGA form. I had to take this update from my PC as it was inappropriate.

* To use this utility

To start this utility, select the icon, then right-click the desktop ‘ Driver Genius’ icon and select ‘Run as Administrator.’ Or from the list of ‘All Apps.’ Basically, you select the button to scan for newer drivers, and backup your current computer driver’s manifest, then apply these updates. If your driver update process fails, you can select and restore the previous driver you had before. This is in my case my suggested video driver update was invalid. The process proved easy to feel in control and felt safe using this utility. Some updates included were motherboard chipset updates. Don’t respond to video updates requesting a reboot if some of the other updates have not completed as this will mess up these updates big time! Or else in easy terms, If it’s busy don’t reboot!

* Number of driver updates found by this utility

I bought my computer the day Windows 8 was released. I have subsequently upgraded to Windows 10. Driver Genius Pro 16 still discovered over 50 updates, based on using it four times with a few months between each updating sessions. There is a freely downloadable – although crippled – version to allow you to test and show how many drivers may be updatable on your machine to show if it’s worth the money for you to buy this utility. You can set the utility when to work; at a time you select, and weekly and monthly intervals or whenever you require this. Its up to you.

* Summary

This is a useful and safe utility that works to update Windows. This is (i.m.h.o) recommended and try not to worry about using this as there are help files included with this utility to read where you require help. This usage of installing as many driver updates as you can to help protect your computer system is recommended by Microsoft as a good policy to maximise the ability of your computer to cope with Windows 10 updates.

Please note that the number of updates available for your computer will go down as newer devices for newer computers are introduced. The updates do dry up and this utility will not really be needed after the initial few years updating drivers for your computer.

item ordered to update on the previous edition; same process as before; enabling latest drivers to be available on multiple pcs (obviously more economical than purchasing individual pc downloads) ; suppose each edition-version lasts for a calendar year, and then the next one is purchased; that’s ok…
13aug2017-update : SO WHY IS THERE NO LONGER AN ANNUAL-EDITION OF ‘DRIVER GENIUS’ IN EASY-USE CD-FORMAT FOR MULTIPLE-DEVICES ??

better using ashampoo driver updater