SlimDrivers

Note: This review addresses v2.0 of the software, as do any user reviews dated before 05/27/2011.

Think your PC and your peripherals are up to date with the latest drivers installed? Think again. There’s a very good chance that your drivers are outdated, leading to potential performance and security issues.

The free SlimDrivers provides a solid solution to the problem. It scans your PC and all attached peripherals, checks to see whether there are newer drivers available. It then reports on which are outdated, and shows you a list of them all. To update any driver, click “Download Update” and an installation procedure begins. After the drivers are installed, you’ll generally be required to re-start your PC in order for them to take effect.

Note that downloading and installing drivers could potentially lead to system problems, so make sure before using this program to create a Restore Point. (The program will do it for you as well, if you ask it.) That way, if updating your drivers causes any problems, you can easily revert your system to the way it was before the update.

On my system, which I assumed had up-to-date drivers, SlimDrivers found 19 which were outdated. I downloaded and installed them all, and my system is now in tip-top shape. Did it increase performance? If so, I couldn’t tell, but any tech guru will tell you that a system with the latest drivers is a more stable and secure system than one without.

You may find one thing about SlimDrivers annoying: You’ll have to update each driver separately; you can’t do them all at once. So if you have a lot of outdated drivers, that means you’ll have to spend a good deal of time installing them, and restarting your PC multiple times. A for-pay version called Driver Update is available that will automatically update multiple drivers. It costs $29.97 for a one-year subscription.

–Preston Gralla