Thanks, Carol

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Dear Carol,

There really is no site that has all the drivers you might need for a computer. A better solution is to check the manufacturers web site. They almost always have drivers for their products on their website.

If your computer was manufactured by one of the major computer companies, (Dell or HP would be an example) it is easy to find drivers. Just go to the manufacturers web site and click on the “Support” section. If you search for your computer model, or serial number, you should find a list of all the drivers for that computer.

If your computer was custom built, you will have to do a little bit of research to find your drivers. If you open the computer up, and take a look at the motherboard, you should see the name of the company that made the motherboard, and a model number printed on the surface. Go to your search engine and search for that company and model number. You should be able to find the company website, and they should have the drivers.

You will probably need to repeat the search for each hardware component in the computer like the video card, sound card, etc.

Those are the steps that I take to find drivers for my customers.

Elizabeth

Thanks in advance, Merri in Michigan

Dear Merri,

If you still have the Driver CDs that came with your computer, the sound drivers would be on there. If not, you should always be able to get free drivers from the website of the company that manufactured your computer, or the company that manufactured your device.

In your case, you should be able to get the drivers from Gateway.

Head on over to www.gateway.com and click on the “Support” tab.

If you can find the sticker with the serial number of your computer, you can enter that on their site, or just select the model of your computer.

Once you have found the model you are looking for, click on the link for “Driver Downloads”

If you can’t find your model, or you can’t find sound drivers for your operating system, click on the link to send Gateway an email.

I have downloaded drivers for customers many times, and never had to pay for them.

A good way to prevent this kind of situation is to make a backup of your current drivers. Programs like Driver Detective have a built in wizard that allows you to copy your drivers to a CD or DVD for future use.

Elizabeth

I have a new dell computer.  My epson printer and scanner is not conpatible with vista. Is there a way to find a new driver that will solve the problem?

Thank you, Liz

Dear Liz,

If Epson has drivers for your printer and scanner that work with Vista, they will be on the Epson website. You are fortunate that you have an Epson product, they are quite good about providing updated drivers for their high-end products on their website.

Your first step is to look on the front of your printer, scanner or all-in-one appliance and write down the model and model number. I have two Epson Scanners, one that is almost 8 years old, and a new one that I just purchased for scanning magazines in my sewing room. My Scanner model and number looks something like this:

Epson Perfection 2450 Photo for the old scanner, and Epson Perfection V300 Photo for the new one.

When you go to the Epson website at www.epson.com, you will first have to click on the country you are in, before you will see the main page.

On Epson’s front page, point to the menu item that says, “Drivers and Support” and a sub-list will drop down. Click on the type of item you have in the drop down list, either Printers, Scanners or All-In-Ones.

I have an Epson Scanner , so I will click on Scanners.

Next, I need to select the type of scanner, since mine is an Epson Perfection scanner, I will click on the link that says, “Epson Perfection Series”.

The Epson webpage will now display a list with each model in the series, and you just need to click on your model. I clicked on my Epson Perfection 2450 photo model since it is the oldest and didn’t come with Vista drivers.

The Epson website will now display four options for your scanner;

• Drivers and downlaods
• Top FAQs For This Product
• Documents and Manuals
• Contact Support

We want to click on “Drivers and Downloads”.

The next web page shows you a list of available drivers for different operating systems. Even though my old scanner is almost 8 years old, there is a driver listed for Windows Vista 32-bit edition.

Click the link above your Windows version, and the description will be expanded like in the picture below:

Click on the Download Now link to download the driver for your device. Save the driver to a folder on your hard drive, either on your desktop, in your “Documents” folder, or “Downloads” folder.

Once the file has finished downloading, double click on it to install the driver program.

Elizabeth