I've seen various driver collector programs ,do these do anything that going to the control panel and finding what driver a device is using?

To answer your question I believe these programs are designed to make backup copies of the drivers in current use. Supposedly so you can re-install them if necessary. Better method, IMO, is to create a backup image of your operating system partition. This is just a portion of good computing practices. If you do need to re-install your OS you should have the drivers available ahead of time. If you do re-install using a CD with an earlier version of Windows on it the drivers may be different anyway and applying the newer drivers may cause problems prior to updating the OS. IMO the programs you refer to are a waste of money.

Give this a try, it's FREE http://www.allworldsoft.com/softwar... There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Driver Magician Lite (freeware) http://www.drivermagician.com/Lite.htm

Did you mean BESIDES doing anything other than going to the control panel and finding what driver a device is using? No? And that's why none of the magic works. Drivers need to be installed properly by their installation software. Just because you have a copy of some of the driver files doesn't mean you have drivers installed properly or registry entries that allow those drivers to work right - it's nonsense to suggest that you would. I don't believe the Control Panel is involved here either. Lee

Yes I meant besides.From the control panel System/Device Manager you can update the drivers for any of the hardware.Thanks for your replies.

mister If you are not experiencing any problems with a hardware component I recommend that you not update a driver file simply because there is a newer version.