Driver drivers and more drivers

tintin82 · 25 Oct 2015 at 01:10

I recently downloaded and installed one of these driver scanner programs which duly told me that many of my drivers where out of date. Most of this stuff I had no idea what they were referring to, things like storage engine management.

Anyway, my question is, do I need to bother with software like this? And if so why does Windows not keep everything up to date? Plus can anyone recommend a free program if I should use one?

Reason I ask is that after running a single install of Windows 7 for the past 4 years I am going to do a format and clean install of Windows 10 after trying the upgrade for a few weeks.

bledd · 25 Oct 2015 at 10:06

The only one I'd trust is

Snappy Drivers Installer.

Before running it, I'd take a full system image.

If you want to install W10 using the free upgrade and you're having problems with it right now, I'd do the following.

Format the PC, install Windows 7 again.
Once this is up and running, run the Windows 10 setup.

Unless things have changed, Microsoft need to see the 'upgrade' take place so it can register your hardware on their servers as a Windows 10 machine.

Swifty55 · 25 Oct 2015 at 14:38

bledd. said:
The only one I'd trust is

Snappy Drivers Installer.

Before running it, I'd take a full system image.

If you want to install W10 using the free upgrade and you're having problems with it right now, I'd do the following.

Format the PC, install Windows 7 again.
Once this is up and running, run the Windows 10 setup.

Unless things have changed, Microsoft need to see the 'upgrade' take place so it can register your hardware on their servers as a Windows 10 machine.

I'm sure you can do a fresh install of Windows 10 using your Windows 7/8/8.1 serial key?

KIA · 25 Oct 2015 at 15:45

tintin82 said:
Anyway, my question is, do I need to bother with software like this?

No. Use the manual approach.

tintin82 · 25 Oct 2015 at 18:20

Swifty55 said:
I'm sure you can do a fresh install of Windows 10 using your Windows 7/8/8.1 serial key?

If you want to do a fresh install of W10 you have to do the upgrade path from W7. This basically registers your W7 key with Microsoft and they activate a W10 key twinned to your W7 key.

Only after you have done this upgrade path can you do a complete format and a fresh W10 install. When your newly installed W10 verifies with Microsoft their servers know it is already registered... apparently. This is what I have been reading from a good few sites.

The first big upgrade for W10 is out in early November. One of the changes is that you can register straight with a W7 key and do not have to do the laborious task of upgrade - format - install.