Best Site For Obtaining The Latest Drivers For Windows 11

Hi All,
Is there a tried & true website for obtaining the latest drivers for windows 11 64-bit , as I remember there used to be at least one software application that would obtain the needed drivers for the computer that's being used. Also as I remember at one point in time a user could obtain the latest drivers directly from microsoft.

Drivers are typically available from Microsoft. My general opinion is that I use the integrated drivers. As long as device manager is clear, I leave it alone and make sure things work as expected.

The drivers that I always get from the vendor is my graphics driver, so in my case Nvidia.

Either the manufacturer of the computer system or the component is the only reliable source of drivers.

If you want latest device driver you will find it at device manufacturer website.

Davy49 said:

Hi All,
Is there a tried & true website for obtaining the latest drivers for windows 11 64-bit ,

Click to expand...

Nope. Go to the vendor-source.

There are many, many programs available and heavily promoted that promise to supply all of the drivers you need. There are also many, many sources of annoying malware available. Some of those are the same ones, and it may be hard to tell the honest from the dis-, without engaging in very risky downloading.

Just stick with the manufacturers. They are "tried and true."

I strongly recommend to keep away from 99.99% of any "Drivers Update Software" . Best case scenario - the drivers they install are compatible enough - to work (since they're meant for same chip - but different OEM). While worst case... after a restart Windows won't be able to boot (again, it's the same chip - so you can install them... but the intended system - could be quite different in one way or the other - so they won't/can't work properly). And that's just it - 99.99% of all this so called drivers updating softwares - do the same thing even seem to work with the same drivers data base. Which, takes drivers from every OEM and if sharing the same chip "it allows you to install it" despite of being incompatible. As long as it's "newer" - that's the only thing that matters for this software to register it as a valid update.

The thing is - that's their main interest (or even selling) point: displaying new sets of drivers for your system - despite of most drivers - not being actually intended for your machine. For example - you may have a laptop from HP with same chip as one from Dell - yet, different other components - even design to work slightly different (and that's usually why they fail). It's why even the chip manufacturer (Intel or AMD) - recommends using the latest driver from the OEM. Even tho, compared to OEM drivers - the "generic" drivers developed by the manufacturer - tend to work, most of the time (they're just not optimized for your specific machine).

That being said - the only app i'm aware of being good enough (yet, not idiot proof) - to find drivers for a given machine (i used it for old laptops in particular) - Snappy Driver Installer Origin – Glenn's Page It's not just free but open source - so they have nothing to gain from scamming/fooling you into thinking you're missing out on newer drivers (it's not for sell). Why i call most of the others apps "a scam" - well - as you may have noticed - in a lot of cases the free version only shows that i find drivers - yet you need the Pro/Paid to install them. Which is quite ironic - taking into account what i mentioned above (how they work - or more like - how they can mess up your Windows) - as in... the ones who buy the so called Pro version - end-up paying for their stupidity (paying for an app that can mess-up the OS).

Hello,
Yet again I'm blown away by the amount of actual help a member here in the forum can receive, I've always been of the mindset to provide help to other people when possible because you never really know when you might need some kind of help yourself. With that being said, thanks to everyone who replied to my inquiry. As the computer that I was seeking a more recent driver for is an older model hp desktop, I did in fact check first at the actual hp support website & quickly discovered that the most recent drivers that are available are for windows 8 the best I can remember. I'm thinking I should feel lucky that I'm even able to actually run windows 11 pro 64-bit on this older model desktop. Please Stay Safe & Healthy.
David

Davy49 said:

Hello,
Yet again I'm blown away by the amount of actual help a member here in the forum can receive, I've always been of the mindset to provide help to other people when possible because you never really know when you might need some kind of help yourself. With that being said, thanks to everyone who replied to my inquiry. As the computer that I was seeking a more recent driver for is an older model hp desktop, I did in fact check first at the actual hp support website & quickly discovered that the most recent drivers that are available are for windows 8 the best I can remember. I'm thinking I should feel lucky that I'm even able to actually run windows 11 pro 64-bit on this older model desktop. Please Stay Safe & Healthy.
David

Click to expand...

Yeah I believed it myself that since sevenforums these sites are very useful.

Regarding your question, the manufacturer site is a good starting point to see the names of your actual hardware and then check every device on their manufacturer site for more recent drivers. The OEM usually uploads the drivers that are "best" on their site and don't update them very often. You can also use free app like HW Info to check your hardware.
You should avoid these sites that claim they have all the updates as they often install some bloatware and unnecessary programs.

Good luck,
werty

For old systems or OEM systems that you cannot locate the manufacturer support site, you can use an identification tool such as Aida64 or Speccy to find out exactly which parts (chipset, CPU, graphics card, sound card etc) your system is made of. Then you may visit each manufacturer site separately and download latest driver. If you install all drivers manually, I recommend starting with the chipset drivers since all other devices depend on it and may have issues if you replace the chipset drivers afterwards. The second one is the graphics card and then followed by the sound card and any other device. To save you the trouble to download each driver separately, you can try Windows Update, but as I have explained in may occasions it just makes the system work. It hardly installs the full pack of the drivers and it doesn't give you access to all the device features and of course there is no Control Panel (such as Intel Graphics Properties), to tweak performance. An alternative is to use a driver utility with good reputation such as Snappy Driver Installer or AVG Driver Updater (avoid any unknown and obscure utilities). Even with such a utility it is too risky to update all drivers. I would only install missing drivers and let the others as they are, unless there is some issues already in my system and hope to fix them by updating all drivers. For example, I recently installed some drivers to an old HP laptop running Windows XP. Even though I have installed the official Intel INF package (chipset drivers), the CD-ROM would not work (the infamous Error 10, device cannot start). After updating all drivers with Snappy the CD-ROM worked properly! So it depends, not all cases are the same. I would prefer manually downloading and installing all drivers from manufacturer first, then allow Windows Update to install any remaining drivers and if this is not possible use Snappy as a last resort. But I would first install missing drivers only. I would not touch any working driver to avoid incompatibility issues.

Warning!!!! NEVER use any driver utility or third party drivers (including Windows Update) on tablets, or you will lose the touch functionality and rotation and maybe something more. To fix that you have to install the specific chipset drivers available at the tablet's manufacturer's site. To avoid any issues due to automatic driver updates, run the Windows Update Show/Hide Tool (or similar utility) and hide (block) any driver updates.

MS has many drivers, you can copy hardware ID to get it, but it is a mess and they are 3-6 months old.
I use Driver Easy Free to find the driver and once I know the version, I can download it from anywhere.

If you stick to Windows Update you'll be fine. But launch WU and look at optional updates, where driver updates appear.

I agree, the best other place to update drivers if you think you have a problem is the specific page for your make and model of laptop,

If you want to just install drivers and do a quick but not perfect job, just run Windows Update. This is what many Services do in order to get finished quickly and support many customers during the day. But I don't like it. I prefer to take more time and do good job by manually downloading most (if not all) drivers from manufacturer. This way I make sure I get the best possible performance, system stability and compatibility. I want to avoid my customer returning the computer because a device or application doesn't work properly. I even adjust some settings to make it easier and more convenient for my customer to use his computer.

spapakons said:

I even adjust some settings to make it easier and more convenient for my customer to use his computer.

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Or to reduce custom support requests?

During the years I know what a typical computer user wants, and I can predict his needs in some degree. So I do the appropriate configuration, I install the relevant applications and do some stuff before my customer asks for them. The problem is that some customers don't just tell you they want this or that. They hold you responsible that the computer doesn't have the feature they want and accuse you that you got paid without doing a good job. That's why I prefer to spend a little more time to do some stuff before they even ask.

Davy49 said:

Hello,
Yet again I'm blown away by the amount of actual help a member here in the forum can receive, I've always been of the mindset to provide help to other people when possible because you never really know when you might need some kind of help yourself. With that being said, thanks to everyone who replied to my inquiry. As the computer that I was seeking a more recent driver for is an older model hp desktop, I did in fact check first at the actual hp support website & quickly discovered that the most recent drivers that are available are for windows 8 the best I can remember. I'm thinking I should feel lucky that I'm even able to actually run windows 11 pro 64-bit on this older model desktop. Please Stay Safe & Healthy.
David

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Davy49, I have and run 1) HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Tower Running Windows Server 2022. 1) HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7680n Running MCE2005. 1) HP Compaq 8200 Elite SFF PC intel I-5 running Windows 11 21H2. 1) HP Compaq 8200 Elite SFF PC intel I-7 running Windows 7 Ultimate. 1) HP Z400 Intel Xeon W3680 Running Windows 10 22h2. With all these Computers, I use Double Driver to backup the Drivers and the Drivers that do not get installed on a new install or OS Change, I use the backup drivers to reinstall.

@Dudeluv

You might want to check out this tutorial from this site's master teacher:

I'm yet again TOTALLY blown away by the amount of help that I've been provided with (and always am I might add) here in this wonderful forum !! Previously I've always had great results while using this software ( free for personal use only ) Belarc Advisor - Belarc, Inc. . And of course we do need to take time to give a huge shoutout to Shawn wo continues to stay on top of things by constantly adding new content all of the time.
David

Wisewiz said:

@Dudeluv

You might want to check out this tutorial from this site's master teacher:

Backup and Restore Device Drivers in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to back up and restore all 3rd party device drivers on your Windows 10 and Windows 11 PC. If you clean install Windows, you will need to install drivers for each device in the system. Some of these device drivers may no longer be available from the manufacturer...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

I for sure needed to check it out, so thank you. The Tutorials section is pure gold.

The problem with the backup is that there is no installer to run for the drivers. You have to go to Device Manager and browse to the appropriate folder. This is fine for devices such as graphics, sound, network, but it is hard to di for System devices (chipset) as you need to update them one-by-one and doing that in the wrong order guarantees a BSOD.

The only 3rd party tool I bother to use is Snappy Driver Installer Origin. Do not search for it, as there are two or three clones out there that are ridiculous bullshit - this is the only page to get it from:


All he does is compile a (very large) list of driver packs that include the latest drivers for most devices and hardware. The upside is it will find drivers for things Windows Update might miss. The downside is that, every once in a while, it will find drivers that you may not actually be able to install (BT is notorious for this nonsense).

Otherwise, It's the manufacturer's website, and occasionally Windows Update (But I'm of the same mind as spapakons - you get bare minimum with Windows Update drivers, not necessarily full functionality, so that is my last choice, after the manufacturer's website and SDIO.

Again - do not go searching for it - there are clones that are not free, and / or malware ridden. If you do, it's at your own risk. The link above is the only place to get it from.

Also, be warned, that all the drive packs together total ~ 25 GB - the scripts will allow you to select only the ones applicable to your computer, but that can still be a couple of GBs of downloads.