Drivers sit between your computer's hardware and its operating system, identifying and enabling each component's unusual features. When a piece of hardware stops working or acts in a nonstandard fashion, you can follow the steps in the following sections to identify and hopefully fix the problem.
Checking a driver
One of the first things to check when hardware stops working is if its driver has become corrupted, erased, or made unusable because of other changes you made, such as updating your operating system. To check for driver problems, just follow these steps:
1. From the Start menu, choose the Control Panel.
The Control Panel window opens.
2. Double-click the System icon.
The System Properties dialog box appears.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Click the Device Manager button.
The Device Manager window opens.
5. Scroll down the list in the Device Manager window and look for a yellow exclamation point; this is an indication of a problem.
If you find a yellow warning, the solution may be to reinstall the previous driver or install a new one.
Reinstalling a driver
To reinstall a driver, follow these steps:
1. Follow the steps in the preceding section to identify the malfunctioning device.
2. Double-click the device that has the yellow exclamation point.
A dialog box for that device appears.
3. Click the Driver tab in the device's dialog box and then click the Update Driver button.
Windows should list all the available drivers for the hardware, and choosing one of those drivers often works just fine to fix the problem. If you have an updated version of the driver in a specific location, you can specify that location to the system.
Rolling back a driver
If the driver problem arises after you install a new driver, the first thing to do is see if the issue goes away by rolling back the device to a previous state. To roll back a device, follow these steps:
1. Follow the steps in the section "Checking a driver," earlier in this article, to open the Device Manager.
2. In the Device Manager, right-click the problematic device.
2. Choose Properties from the pop-up menu that appears.
A dialog box for that device appears.
3. Click the Driver tab.
4. Click the Roll Back Driver button.
Using System Restore on a driver
If rolling back the driver doesn't solve the problem, use System Restore to return your computer to the way it was before you installed the new driver. Consult your problem-driver manufacturer's Web site or call the hardware's support desk to see if the manufacturer has a new driver or specific advice on dealing with problems.
