On the one hand, we have the classic Device administrator, a tool that has been with us for many years in Windows and, thanks to which, we can easily see all the components connected to the PC, along with their drivers. To access it, we just have to click with the right mouse button on «This team” and select the option “Manage”.
First of all, it is important to know that this element included by default in Windows is one of the most important when it comes to managing all the components installed on our computer.
We can also get to this panel directly by right-clicking on the start menu, and choosing that option, or with the Windows + X keyboard shortcut. Then, a new window will open like the following.
As we can see, a series of categories appear here with all the devices that we have connected. Within each category we can see all the connected components.
Components that are not installed correctly or that are not working correctly will be displayed with an exclamation point. In addition, if we double click on each one of them we will open the window of “Properties” of it, where we can see the status of the device, that is, if it is working correctly or has errors.
In this same window “Properties”, if we click on the tab “Controller” we can see a summary with the status of the controller and a series of additional options:
- Controller Details: Allows us to see in detail the files that make up the controller.
- update driver: If we click, Windows will search Windows Update for a new version of it and, if it exists, it will download and install it.
- Roll back the previous driver: If after an update the driver works badly, we can go back to the previous one.
- Disable: It allows us to disable (disconnect) the device so that it stops working. The driver will still be installed.
- Uninstall: It allows us to uninstall the driver completely from the system. We must use this option carefully, since if we reconnect the device it will not be automatically installed again.
As we have said, the option that interests us the most in this section is that of «update driver«. If we click on it, a simple wizard will open through which we can search for a new version of the driver on Microsoft servers (or install it by looking for it on the computer, if we are advanced users and we have already downloaded them before).
And we must also know well the option to revert to the previous driver, in case a new version is giving us problems, and the options to disable or uninstall the driver, to delete the driver from our PC, disconnect the device and reconnect it again. new.
And what about the installed drivers of devices that are not connected? Here things get a bit complicated, although Windows was not going to leave us behind. And it is that the system also gives us everything we need to see the third-party drivers installed on the PC, even if they are not loaded.
See all drivers installed with CMD
It may be the case that we need to see a complete list with the drivers installed on the same device. As you already know, the Device Manager does not allow us to do this, its purpose is to allow us to manage the controllers one by one. Well, at this point it is important to know that this is something that we can achieve without using third-party applications.
In short, we could say that everything is reduced to the execution of a command that we can use in the command prompt window. In this way, what we achieve is to easily obtain a complete list of the drivers installed on the computer. Therefore, the first thing we must do is access this specific section, the command prompt. There are several ways to do this, although one of the fastest is to write CMD in the box after using the Win + R key combination.
This will give us access to the command window that we referred to before, where we can now type the order that shows all the Windows drivers. Thus, for this we will only have to write the command driverquery so that the list of corresponding drivers appears.
Initially, if we only use this mentioned command, without any other parameters, we will be able to see all the controllers of the equipment listings. These will appear in the window of the symbol of the system that we have open, so we can move through it upwards.
On the other hand, in the event that we also want to view the driver file that is stored, we can use driverquery /v. Also, in the event that we want to see the signed driverswe can easily list them as well as with many details, typing in this case driverquery /si.
We must also take into account that this is a fairly complete command and offers us several alternatives or modes of operation. Of course, all of them related to the drivers that over time we install in the windows computer. If out of curiosity you want to know all the possible parameters that you can use here, we recommend typing driverquery /?, functions that you can see in the screenshot attached to these lines.
MSINFO
Additionally, we can also use the command msinfo which shows us system information with a lot of details related to the equipment, including the controllers installed. This is an order that we directly execute in the search box on the Windows taskbar.
This tool shows us much more detailed information than the device manager, but more chaotic. It is usually very useful to get to know the properties of the PC in depth, leaving aside the installed drivers and to be able to solve possible errors and conflicts. But, depending on what we are going to do, this tool may not be exactly what we are looking for.
Using third-party applications
If we don’t like the different options that Windows makes available to us to see all the drivers we have installed on our PC, we can resort to third-party applications, applications like the ones we show you below.
InstalledDriversList
Another way to see all the drivers that we have installed on our computer is to use a tool, developed by NirSoft, called InstalledDriversList. This software is responsible for dumping the information of all the drivers found on our computer and allows us to see a series of data about them:
- Controller name.
- Display name.
- Description.
- Start type.
- driver type
- Controller group to which it belongs.
- File name.
- File size.
- Time of modification or creation.
- Information about the version.
In addition, if the driver is currently running, we can also see the following information:
- starting memory address
- Ending memory address.
- Size it occupies in memory.
- Charge count.
This program is totally free and we can download it. Of course, it is important to emphasize that, if our system is 64-bit, we will have to download the 64-bit version if we do not want to have problems.
iObit Driver Booster
Another program that can help us for this same purpose is iObit Driver Booster. The objective of this program is to allow us to quickly analyze our computer in search of all the drivers that we have installed on the computer and check, in a huge database, which of them are up-to-date or obsolete. In addition, it will allow us to update all these drivers with a single click to keep our computer up to date.
In addition to this function, the IObit software allows us to see a complete list with all the drivers that we have installed on our computer. Even those of those devices that we do not currently have connected to the PC. In this way we can get an idea, very easily, of all the drivers we have on the computer. And, in addition to updating the computer, we will also be able to eliminate all those installed drivers that we no longer need, being able to keep our computer much more organized and clean.
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