If you think you aren't getting all you can from your Windows PC setup, then there is a chance that your drivers are at fault. But while you may receive alerts if a larger component (such as your graphics card) is out-of-date, smaller parts may languish with old drivers indefinitely.
This is where DriverPack Solution Online tries to step into help. The program scans your computer for old drivers, then links you to its online service to download and install the updates.
Looking after the little things
DriverPack Solution Online is a simple, but not flawless, process. Running the program for the first time I was greeted with a window that told me that many of my drivers were out of date, and was then give the option to identify the required updates from the DriverPack Solution site.
Once identified, you can select the drivers you want (or more precisely deselect the ones you don't want) from the list. Then DriverPack Solution Online will do the rest, installing the desired components.
This automated process works well, but we did experience a few problems during testing. Occasional clashes and exceptions while installing the drivers demanded my attention more than once, and required a restart. Ultimately, this wasn’t a huge problem for me, but could cause bigger issues for some computers or just unnerve less experienced users who may be coming to the program for an easy one-stop solution.
All in one place
For a little extra benefit, DriverPack Solution Online adds shortcuts to some handy (and often hard to find) functions. These include the device manager, the uninstall program function, system clean-up, and the disk defrag to optimize your hard disk. While these are functions available in Windows as standard, their inclusion in the DriverPack window is convenient.
Useful and simple, but flawed
DriverPack Solution Online is a straightforward and well laid out program, which provides easy shortcuts to a lot of your Windows' PC utilities. However, the benefits provided to our PC's performance from the drivers was questionable, and the few hiccups we encountered while installing them may be off-putting for some users.
Download DriverPack Solution Online 15 Beta in
