Vista - Are Compter Software Programs Really Necessary or a Rip Off to Customers

I just purchased a new computer with Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I have noticed that there is a lot of software programs to make your computer run better or faster. Take for instance to update yur drivers. There are numerous software programs out there. I ran two programs which show the same drivers that I should update. ATA controller and NVIDIA Graphic card. Before oking the update I then went into Device Manager and checked these drivers. First off there were no exclamination marks showing me that any device needed attention. I then clicked on the each driver and ran update driver. Each driver came back stating no driver update was needed. No update needed, but these 2 programs stated the drivers needed to be update. My question is, "How good are these programs!!! Are they really necessary or are they ripping off the customer.

If they were free, then you can't complain of being ripped of. However, you can complain they're a waste of time and energy. You certainly don't need some app to "help" you update drivers.

I agree with Fumz. I don't use, and I don't recommend, so called tweaking programs and "driver detectives". Instead, I periodically check the manufacturers websites for any updated drivers. The only drivers I check for are the graphics (NVidia) and audio (Realtek).

All said above. Check the graphics driver once a month. I have a webpage I have made locally on my computer with all the device driver manufacturers on it. Once a month I check them to see if there are any updates. This also negates the need to rely on microsofts drivers which have a habit of causeing problems.

I do all my own computer repairs including building. My point is that the consumer should really check out these software programs for (updates and repairs) and make sure that they do the job as stated. So far 4 software programs that I ran for updates on drivers show all the same drivers, but not one of these drivers need any updates per device manager (update driver). Can these programs cause more damage to a PC? Yes!!!!! Now the consumer wasted their money on the program and hopefully they can do the repairs or a PC Repair shop makes the money to repair the problem. Consumer BEWARE!!!!!!!

The same can be said for some registry cleaners or tweaking programs. Also programs that promise a massive increase in speed on the internet. Unless you know what you are doing these programs have the potential to cause more damage than good.

When you update drivers through the device manager it uses Windows Update. Windows Update only searches for drivers on Windows Update; it does not search all of the vendor sites related to your hardware. Sometimes vendors just don't tell Windows Update when they've released newer drivers. My Vista Tech Support Professor said just this morning that Intel is notorious for that... which is why sometimes Windows Update tells you something different from the vendor sites.

I'll throw in my 2cents, just for the heck of it.


One the surface, programs that check your system for application and driver updates are an awesome idea. I mean, it's almost a full-time job keeping on top of that stuff, yourself. And leaving each application to run its own updater means your system is bogged down by a dozen of those durn things. A complete waste of time and resources.

However, it has been my observation that most of these utilities to manage your updates for you often do a poor job. Worse: they have been known to really screw up your system when they try to handle your drivers.

For my part, I do not recommend running any auto-update or update-manager software, other than Microsoft Update.

For everything else, find some time once a month and do it manually. The risk of some third-party software hosing up your system just isn't worth it.

That is one of the bigger debates that goes on around. My personal *application* update check is FileHippo's - it is fast, and it works. And their download servers are fast also.

For driver updates, I tend to look *myself*. I have tried a couple of them, and if DriverMax ever gets their direct download system working I'll possibly suggest it....but for the most part I do my own searching and downloading (or else I come here :P).

Exactly. As soon as I saw that the OP was trying to update drivers using the Update driver button, I started preparing my soliloquy about how the driver update button only looks at the driver repository that is available from Windows Update, yadda yadda yadda, and then saw this post.

@tedebrsweetness - you have to realize where your driver store is, and I am willing to bet at least one of those two free driver update programs would have linked you to a page that had more information on it - i.e. clicking would not have *downloaded* the driver automatically, but taken you to an information page.

Again, I agree for the most part. Now, a simple check for an updated version is one thing - but compatibility issues and patches and such need to be handled with extreme caution....hence the inclusion of System Restore with Windows - because the patches were sometimes causing issues themselves!

As I like to say - no computer program is *smarter* than I am.