Windows 7 Drivers
You may or may not be aware of this but Windows 7 is basically Windows Vista when you put all matters into consideration. For the most part all things that were made to be compatible with Vista will work with Windows 7.
When it comes to drivers, the same holds true. If you need to update drivers for your Windows 7 computer and are having trouble doing so, don’t worry, there is always a way. In fact you can use Vista drivers.
How to Locate Drivers
The first step is to find the drivers that you need, which you can do so by going to the device manager of your computer.
Analyze the hardware components that are currently installed on your computer, and make certain that no yellow exclamations exist. If there are yellow exclamations, this lets you know that there are missing or invalid drivers.
In order to update the drivers of your devices, you’ll need to determine the manufacturer of the device. You’ll be able to locate the information about the driver by viewing the properties dialog from the device manager screen.
You can try and locate the newest drivers for the device by visiting the manufacturer website. You can usually get to the available drivers by using the search feature on the website. Simply enter the search term, typically the model name and “Driver” and then hit enter. You will find a list of available drivers for your device, from which you can download the ones that you feel you need. If you can’t find any drivers for Windows 7, then you can use the drivers that are identified as being for Windows Vista.
Compatibility Errors with Your Windows 7 Driver
You can easily get around compatibility errors that may occur during the installation process if your attempting to download and install a driver to your Windows 7 machine. All you have to do is cancel the installation, right click on the .exe file, and then select Troubleshoot Compatibility.
You can then click Next and be patient while the process of troubleshooting the driver goes on. When completed, you will get a list of options, so you can select the option “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now” and click next. In the list of operating systems, select Windows Vista.
You will then be presented with a list of troubleshooting details. Click Next and then the installation will proceed in Windows Vista mode. When this process completes, your PC should have the proper drivers.
Before You Install Drivers
You should be certain that you have the most current version of DirectX on your PC before you try to install the latest driver versions on your computer, and make sure you start with the chipset drivers. This will help make certain that the process of installing any other drivers goes smoothly and will be compatible with current driver versions.
You will also want to do a restart and not have any other applications running before starting the driver update process. Be sure to restart your computer between multiple driver installations to make sure that all of the changes are applied for the different driver versions that are installed.
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