This is about a utility called DriverEasy and how to take the hassle out of keeping your device drivers up to date. DEVICE DRIVER BASICS A device driver is a piece of software that sits between the operating system and the hardware. It enables the Operating System (OS) to access the device using standard system calls. Drivers provide a convenient way of interfacing a variety of devices without the OS or applications requiring the details of directly communicating with the hardware in question. When you install a new device, you also install its driver. When the system boots up, it loads the installed device drivers into the kernel, making the devices they support available for use. In fact, when you plug-in a new device, Windows automatically starts the New Device Driver Wizard to guide you through the process of downloading the relevant driver. Every peripherals uses devices drivers because of flexibility they provide. This even includes motherboard components such as temperature management hardware. DRIVER PROBLEMS The driver flexibility made possible by device drivers leads to a problem. For example printers, because each make and model has its own requirements, you'll have install exactly the right driver if all the features are to work as they should. However those drivers are not only hardware-specific, but also operating system-specific. When Microsoft release a major new Windows update, your printer's manufacturer needs to create a new driver specifically for that version of Windows. Until this happens, your printer is basically useless. WHAT YOU'LL NEED DRIVEREASY Fortunately, there is now software dedicated to analyzing and maintaining your operating system's driver structure in an efficient way. This free utility finds and upgrades out-of-date device drivers. You'll find it at www.drivereasy.com.