How To Easily Update Drivers on Windows 10

If everything is functioning the way it’s supposed to, and you’re proactive about updating your Windows OS regularly, there shouldn’t be a need for you to worry about your drivers not being the latest version. Part of the Windows update is about ensuring your drivers are upgraded.

However, if you’re having issues, or curious in general, there are two common approaches to manually updating your drivers on a Windows 10 Operating System.

Approach 1 to Updating Drivers on Windows 10: Download the Optional “Driver Updates”

As pointed out above, ideally, there shouldn’t arise a need for anyone to take this action. Still, there is a separate menu item within the main Windows Update Center settings that says “View all optional updates.”

Navigate to the optional updates page, and in there, you’ll find a sub-heading labeled “Driver Updates.” Expand its dropdown arrow, and select the checkboxes of all the ones you want to Download and install.

Note that even Windows advises that this step is reserved only if you run into a specific problem — which shouldn’t be the case; nevertheless, the option is there.

Approach 2 to Updating Drivers on Windows 10: Leverage “Device Manager”

Device Manager, as aptly named, allows users to diagnose, tweak, and control all of the various components and associated hardware.

Unlike approach 1, Device Manager provides a more granular control for updating drivers — in the sense that you can exactly decide what you want to update, and you have way more choices.

To get started follows the steps along:

Step 1: Go to Device Manager. If you aren’t sure how exactly, you can search for it in the Windows Start Menu.

Step 2: Take a minute or two to determine which category of drivers you want to update by examining the list. Then, open up the dropdown arrow, select the driver, right-click on it to pop up a context menu. From that, select “Update driver.”

Step 3: As your last step, select whether you’d like Windows to automatically search to see if you already have the best driver installed or, you can browse your local computer and manually dictate where to look. This can be a handy feature when you know for certain that your driver would be the latest. An example can be when you’ve directly downloaded one from the manufacturer’s website. Just keep in mind that the latest doesn’t necessarily translate into it being compatible, so it’s usually prudent to let Windows handle things.

Summary

Employing any of these two approaches — in order to update drivers on Windows 10 should suffice. Although, there shouldn’t be a need for manual intervention as the Windows update should account for the latest and the best versions for all your drivers.

Unless, of course, you’re noticing issues with your Windows 10 Operating System functionalities, or you know that what you have is the most updated version — which always isn’t positive because it could be non-compatible. So again, generally and traditionally, let Windows take care of updating drivers for you.