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Notice: this article is a spontaneous recommendation. We did not receive any kind of incentive from Driver Booster or its parent company to recommend this program. We are publishing it because we believe it can be useful to our readers.
Keeping updated the device drivers on your computer is an important task to assure your computer can always reach its maximum performance, as well as be sure your computer is free from known issues. The problem is that most users don’t check if there are newer drivers for his or her computer components.
Some motherboard and laptop manufacturers offer utilities to keep motherboard (or laptop) BIOS and/or drivers updated, but most people don’t know this kind of program exists, or forget to install them. And even installing the software that comes with your motherboard or notebook, it does not verify every single driver.
There are several programs to keep the device drivers updated. One we find interesting and we recommend is called Driver Booster. Besides verifying device drivers, it also verifies operating system components that can be outdated, mostly C++ libraries that, when outdated, can offer smaller performance in games, compared to the latest versions.
The program is free, but there is a Pro version (paid), that offers some additional features, like a larger driver database, support to older and rare drivers, and automatic driver update when the program detects that there is a newer version of some driver. Free version allows automatic check, but you need to manually update the drivers.
Below, we show some screens of the program.
Figure 1: Driver Booster detects outdated device drivers
Figure 2: Driver Booster downloading updated drivers
After system rebooting, the operating system will detect the newer drivers. After this installation, it is possible that you have to reboot your computer again. Run the program once more to be sure all the drivers were successfully installed.
Figure 3: confirming all the drivers were updated
Now let’s talk about some options of the program.
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Some might hesitate to use the program out of fear that some new driver does not work and some component of your computer stops working. To solve this, the program allows you to revert any update, so there is no risk of using it.
The program offers some configuration options, and we will discuss the ones we find more interesting. In order to access the program configuration menu, click on the icon with three lines and select “Settings.”
Driver Booster Setup
On the first screen, there is an option “Launch automatically at Windows startup”, that must be activated if you want the program to be active in the background to check for new updates. On the same screen, you can change the program language if you want to.
Figure 4: options
Clicking on “Scan” you can change the frequency of the verification (default is weekly.)
Figure 5: options
The other options come, in our opinion, already configured the best way, but if you are an enthusiast or a power user, you can play with them to check if there is no important option for your case.
In short, Driver Booster is an excellent program to keep the device drivers on your and your clients’ computers updated. You can, for example, use this program in your standard maintenance procedure on your clients’ computers, avoiding future problems and even correcting problems on their computers.
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