In computing, a driver is a software program that allows a device and the operating system communicate with each other. A device driver operates or controls a particular type of device connected to your computer through a wireless or wired connection. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices so that the operating system and other computer programs can access the functions of connected peripherals without knowing precise details of the hardware being used.
Drivers are the programs which are responsible for establishing communication with the computer and the connected hardware. The driver issues commands when any computer program and the operating system invoke a routine in the driver and then driver sends data back to the calling program. This process continues for the entire duration as long as you keep on using both the hardware.
Drivers are hardware dependent and operating-system-specific programs which usually provide the interrupt handling which is necessarily required for the interaction for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface. Device drivers acts as a translator between the applications or operating systems that use it and hardware device.
USB (Universal Serial Bus) driver is a connection or a bridge between downstream devices and upstream host. Any peripheral device like a printer, digital camera, mouse, gaming system, or zip drive can be a downstream device and an upstream host may be your computer. Without having right driver installed on your computer, your devices will not be able to communicate so it is important to install or update USB drivers.
Earlier, to make the peripheral device functional, it was needed to have a separate port in Central Processing unit (CPU) or a space inside it. With the passage of time, space became an unmanageable issue as space run short. So a lot of efforts were made to bring potential solution and the researchers came up with the invention of USB.
This invention brought very convenient solutions and now it has replaced hundreds of ports and spaces with just one or two USB ports available in your laptop or desktop. It is a standard way for over 100+ different devices to get connected to your desktop or laptop and communicate with them.
What issues may encounter regarding USB drivers?
There may be several reasons behind if you are facing any problem with respect to the attached peripherals to the computer through USB drivers. A few of common reasons are as follows given below:
- Outdated USB drivers
- Upgrade your version of Windows
- Any deadly virus attack has corrupted USB drivers
- Important files on the system are infected
- System freezes or crashes
To make sure that if there is a problem related to the USB drivers, cross-check the following points:
- Reconnect the USB cable and your BASIC Stamp development board. Doing so will show a series of messages in your system tray which say: Found New Hardware
- If you don’t see any of these messages at the right bottom of the screen, open your computer’s Ports list to verify that drivers are installed properly.
- If you see a yellow exclamation mark (!) by the device, it means drivers were not installed successfully or not at all.
- If there is no yellow exclamation mark, it means that the drivers have been installed correctly.
How to update USB drivers or download and install the latest version of the USB drivers?
- If you are a Windows 7 user, click on the Windows Start button and type “device manager” in the search field and click on it. If you are using Windows XP, there is different pathway to reach to Device manager. Click on the Start button of Windows and click on control panel. In the Control Panel window, you will find Device manager.
- There is the Device manager window, expand “Universal Serial Bus controllers” and search for drivers that you want to update or need to be updated.
- Now right click on the drivers and click on the option “update driver’s software” which will open a wizard to update driver software. To update USB drivers, follow the onscreen instructions thereon.
If you find it difficult to follow all these steps to update outdated drivers, Computer-Optimizer is a tool that gives you more convenience to update outdated drivers as well as repairing corrupt and broken drives and resolving other issues your drivers show.
