Keeping drivers up to date will help computer function at its best

By BRIAN BETHEL / Abilene Reporter-News

Today we're going to talk about drivers, but we're not headed anywhere near the freeway.

Instead, we're talking device drivers -- system extensions on the Macintosh -- and the importance of keeping them current.

Device drivers are something PC owners have to contend with, primarily. The equivalent on the Macintosh is called a system extension, but the two standards actually have quite different purposes.

A device driver on a PC makes your hardware conform to the standards of your operating system, allowing your software to take advantage of the features a particular piece of hardware can offer.

An example most of us can understand: You have a sound card in your computer, which allows you to do a variety of things. You can play music compact discs, hear audio files using its waveform decoding features, listen to computer-generated music, etc.

But for your PC to understand that it has a sound card at all, it has to have an appropriate set of instructions telling it so and how to use it.

That's what a device driver does. If you can hear your computer play sounds, then you have an appropriate driver installed.

Chances are, your PC came to you from the manufacturer with the drivers for its sound, video card, disk drives, printer and other items already installed. They wouldn't work otherwise.

By contrast, system extensions on a Macintosh are usually used to make software usable with the Mac's hardware. If you install a new peripheral, such as a scanner, it may come with a new system extension on a diskette to help it run a bit better.

But system extensions are most often used to add functionality to the Mac's existing configuration.

You may be thinking: Well, that's nice. All that stuff is working. What's the point here?

Well, here it is: If you haven't ever updated your device drivers, then you probably aren't using the full power of your computer.

In some cases, especially with video cards and modems, the performance gains can be appreciable.

Programmers tend to figure out how to do things more efficiently as time goes on and as a piece of hardware becomes more used and accepted.

The company that makes a peripheral will usually release new device drivers -- sometimes as quickly as once a month -- to tweak the performance of the hardware.

Macintosh owners can get new system extensions for various programs and products, too. The same reasons apply -- it makes your machine run better.

Each device driver has a version number, usually found in whatever system utilities come with a particular product.

There are also some great little shareware programs out there on the Internet that can suck out all of your device driver versions and display them for you. Check around on sites like www.windows95.com, www.tucows.com or www.download.com.

If you want to see if your drivers are up-to-date, check the version number, then go to the web site or bulletin board system most manufacturers list in their manuals.

If they don't list a web site, a simple search using one of the major search engines is usually all it takes to track them down.

Usually, companies will have a specific section of their site devoted to driver updates.

Check the version number of your existing driver, and if there is a newer version, download and install it like you would any other program.

Another good reason to keep your drivers and system extensions up to date: As new hardware standards and nifty gadgets proliferate, sometimes your older stuff won't like some of your new stuff.

Device drivers can sometimes fix these conflicts, so if you are having a devil of a time getting your computer's peripherals to get along, a new device driver can be an angel in disguise.

Device drivers, and their Macintosh companions system extensions, help your computer be all it can be.

But if you don't take a little time to keep things up to date, your machine may not pass muster.

Until next time, computerphiles, have a Merry Christmas. Hope you get lots of high-tech goodies under the tree.