What Are Device Drivers?

Posted: March 25th, 2011

If you’re a regular computer user, you’ve probably had to deal with device drivers in one form or another. Or maybe you simply saw some advice online to someone telling them to update their drivers.
You see, that’s a usual refrain when someone needs help, and it speaks to the importance of device drivers in ensuring all of your devices are running like they should.

But what exactly are device drivers? Well to put it simply, they tell your operating system what to do with the specified device. Just about any piece of hardware requires the installation of these drivers
to run properly, though some of these will already be installed along with your OS.

Unfortunately, getting the drivers installed is often not the end of the device driver saga.
You see, different devices and programs may conflict with each other, or otherwise unknown bugs
or other issues may come to light at a later date, and the only way for the device manufacturer
to improve the functionality of these devices is to update their drivers. That’s why it’s often suggested to check for updates to your drivers if you’re having an issue with one of your hardware components.

Device drivers can be updated manually by heading to the manufacturer’s website and downloading and installing any updates, or by going into your device manager, finding the appropriate device,
and then choosing the Update Driver option.

What Captain Optimizer does is automatically search for and update any and all devices
with their most recent drivers, which is a great way to keep all of your devices performing to their maximum capacity, and playing nice with each other.
It’s a feature that we’re very proud to have in Captain Optimizer.

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