How to update all drivers on Windows 10: basic methods

Most users of computer systems know that the drivers of absolutely all devices (both "iron" and virtual) should be kept up to date, as the functionality of some applications may be broken, resulting in the programs losing some functions, not to mention the occurrence of errors. On how to update all the drivers on Windows 10, read on. To familiarize with several basic methods.

How to update all drivers on Windows 10 in the standard way

First, let's look at the classical method, which, although it looks very inconvenient, but in the absence of specialized utilities, it can be used, as it were, to the extreme.

How to update the driver on Windows 10? To do this, you must use Device Manager, which you can launch from the Control Panel, the Computer Administration menu, or the devmgmt.msc command in the Run section. Next, you need to open a group of devices, select a particular device and use either the PCM (right mouse button) menu with the driver update string, or double-click to access the properties section where the corresponding software update button is pressed on the driver tab.

For example, you need to update the sound card driver (Windows 10). To do this, first select the desired group of sound and game devices, use the software update line and instruct the system to install the driver from its own database based on scanning what is already on the computer.

If the user has downloaded the new version himself, you need to specify the full path to the location of the file.

But that is not all. As a rule, there may be some virtual MIDI device, audio outputs and inputs, etc. in the system. Therefore, if you want the card to work with all the features, update the sound drivers on Windows 10 for all the above components.

And so for all groups of devices. As you can already guess, the method is very inconvenient, besides it takes quite a lot of time.

Using third-party programs

To simplify the solution to the question of how to update all the drivers on Windows 10 in minutes, you should refer to special automated programs that can scan drivers for updates, download them from the official resources of the equipment manufacturers and independently integrate into the system. The most popular and simple are the following programs:

• DriverPack Solution;
• Driver Booster;
• Slim Drivers.

Let's dwell briefly on each application.

DriverPack Solution

This package, according to many experts, is the most interesting, because it can be used for initial installation of drivers, and for their automatic updating.

For the application, you can download a special web version that "weighs" in the order of 2-3 MB, run the utility, and after installation and scanning use either automatic installation or manual installation. The second option allows you to select the necessary components for the upgrade yourself.

Driver Booster

Now let's see how to update the driver on Windows 10 using the Driver Booster application. The process is not different from the previous case.

After the installation and start of the program, scanning starts automatically, after which a message is received that a certain number of updates has been found. Again, you can use either the installation of all the content, or tick only those components that the user needs.

Slim Drivers

The third program also does not require special user participation and is able to find some non-standard drivers for specific equipment.

But when installing the application on a computer, it's especially worth paying attention to the checkmarks, opposite the lines with the proposal to install additional components. No, of course, there are no viruses, but there is obviously enough advertising rubbish or unnecessary software for the user.

How to update the graphics driver on Windows 10 (NVIDIA and Radeon)?

Now a few words about updating the drivers for video cards. If the user for some reason does not like the above utilities, you can use the download drivers from official resources, but you need to know your model.

But you can do it and it's easier, because both sites have the ability to run an online scan, after which you will be informed about the availability of updates that you can download to your computer.

However, you can use additional utilities, specially designed for this. For NVIDIA, this is the Display Driver Uninstaller program, for Radeon - AMD Driver Autodetect.

In the case of NVIDIA, the application uses the uninstall and reboot button of the system, after which the application interface will slightly change the appearance when it is restarted. The program then selects an express or selective installation.

For AMD, when the applet is started, the Catalyst application is installed, during which the previously installed drivers and some related additional services will be updated.

Conclusion

It remains to be said that the question of how to update all the drivers on Windows 10 is best solved with the use of automated tools, because it is simpler and faster than manually installing updates (especially when the "Device Manager", unlike such Utilities, does not provide any information about the availability of updates). As for video adapters, general programs and specific applications are also suitable. But, I think, it's better to give preference to the software developed by the graphics chip manufacturers themselves.