Whose driving who ? Driver madness

       As a IT technitian every once in while you have to format a machine or upgrade an os or change from windows to linux or from linux to windows. At at very moment you get caught in the sink hole that is driver hell. The solution is always to search for the drivers before hand that is before instation so you dont end up with devices you dont even know which they are specificaly so you can search them.

     The following link (go to link)shows how you can use the device ID (A device ID is a string reported by a device’s enumerator. A device has only one device ID. A device ID has the same format as a hardware ID.).A hardware ID is a vendor-defined identification string that Windows uses to match a device to an INF file. In most cases, a device has associated with it a list of hardware IDs. The device ID can be found in the device manager for any device that has not been recongnised and has a question mark beside the device stating that it is unknown.You can get to the device manager by entering devmgmt.msc into the run box. Then right click and click on properties for the unknown device. This little tip will make you a hero among heroes and make your upgrades all the more fearless.From there you can then go to the device instance path (win 7/vista) or device instance id (xp).Ill check if win 8 has the same process but win 8 should be full of sweet drivers as the os is more recent than most hard ware that can run it.





I'm using this to find the device driver for the unknown device for this machine I am using  as we speak. Im running win 7 pro on a machine that I suspect should have been sold with vista but got downgraded to xp . The linsense is legal by the way .The highlighted part is what we are looking for .From there we are in what I like to call "IT heaven ". Google the bytes off the highlighted device id in this case "HPQ0006" which is a HP quick launch buttons.

And as you can see from above installed and working even if I had to run the installer in compatibility mode for vista sp1

     I have had my own share of hell from device drivers .Biggest mistake I have ever made when starting out with computers was to think that formatting a computer would magicly solve any problems brought on by incorectt settings. Ok lets all face it XP was awsome with tons of memory if you had 4 -6 gb xp would fly and still flies without much support from Microsoft.Vista was a waste of time,but i did use a machine with vista once for a few months at a job and funny enough it worked fine ,but on most machines not. Windows 7 is awsome but has massive start up problems ,stuck at welcome screen or worst still it that it keeps trying to repair itself. Linux is hard its only easy after a search through the forum to figure out from the many choices to do something which one you will pick.No OS is flawless. Formating will always happen.
 XP is easy they had the sense enough to make it able for you to "repair install". Windows seven has a repair option which it loves to show off and at times barely works .you can access it though the F8 fucntion key when booting up.
  So I formated those hard disks to my hearts content but as I grew older and wiser I learnt that you cant do that to the computers and as a professional solving the specific problems is the main thing to try to solve. I had this laptop that was underperforming badly it would crush just after 30 min from start up the screen would get all types of distorted .couldnt play a game with out it stalling or hanging . It was a driver issiue. A graphics driver to be exact and now she is stelar. Downloaded the driver from nvidia directly no nasty incompatible drivers and wow I spent the entire weekend trying to finish GTA SAN ANDREAS.
 Drivers can just drive you mad .