Questions tagged [drivers]
Drivers are the middleware that allow computer programs to use resources of a specific hardware device.
6,366
questions
105
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"reload" mac audio drivers without rebooting
I have an external audio interface (M-audio fast track c400). In order to get my macbook to recognize it (display in audio/midi setup), I have to reboot, which is a hassle. I have had other m-audio ...
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answers
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Windows 10, 'System' process taking massive amounts of RAM
Since I upgraded to Windows 10, my system has been consuming RAM excessively
I've been reading a bit and determined it's likely a driver leaking memory. So I got myself the Windows Driver Kit and ...
- 1,048
55
votes
7
answers
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Windows 10 Installation - A media driver your computer needs is missing
The most weird thing is happening to me:
I have a hp notebook which has no internal DVD drive, so I installed via an external USB LG Blueray burner.
First I installed Windows 10 customer preview into ...
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votes
3
answers
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How to get rid of the Bang & Olufsen panel on HP laptop?
On my HP Windows 10 laptop the following Bang & Olufsen panel appears at the top of certain audio apps, e.g. Skype:
How can I get rid of that?
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How to get a list of active drivers that are statically built into the linux kernel?
While I can use lsmod in order to show currently active kernel modules, how can I see which drivers are statically built into the kernel AND currently active?
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Keyboard not working in Windows 10 Apps + Start Menu
I recently updated to Windows 10 anniversary update and recentlly noticed the PS/2 Keyboard has stopped working in Windows 10 apps such as the settings menu and the start menu. Desktop apps and ...
- 611
47
votes
8
answers
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Installing Windows 7 x64 on a computer with only USB 3 ports
I am installing Windows 7 x64 on a HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF that only has USB 3 and USB Type-C ports.
Initially, upon booting the USB install media, the USB keyboard and mouse wouldn't work - this ...
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votes
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How to mount read-write an ext4 partition on Windows? [duplicate]
I want to use ext4 on my external HDD, but it must be cross-platform. (At least Linux, Win7 & WinXP).
Unfortunately, I haven't found any proper driver allowing Windows to WRITE to ext4. I've ...
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votes
8
answers
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What's the reason behind "Stereo Mix" becoming a missing option?
Several newer computers I've worked on (Dell, mainly) are using IDT or Realtek drivers which lack the Stereo Mix option in audio recording devices.
I've tried all kinds of methods including ...
- 3,257
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votes
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answers
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Why do printers require drivers?
I've always wondered why I need a 500+ MB printer driver installed on my computer every time I set up a new printer. Why can't computers simply send the file that needs to be printed to a printer and ...
- 4,320
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Is there an Apple USB Ethernet driver for Windows?
I recently needed an Ethernet adapter for my laptop, which has USB and WiFi (of course) but no Ethernet. Somebody offered me an Apple USB-to-Ethernet adapter. I figured Windows would offer the driver ...
- 6,284
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What can cause a USB 3.0 port to revert back to USB 2.0?
Say I have a USB 3.0 device, connected with a USB 3.0 cable, to a USB 3.0 port with the correct drivers on a Windows 7 computer. Bandwidth and performances are as expected for USB 3.0.
Now I replace ...
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votes
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Enable/disable Windows 7 device via command line
I have a device that I often enable and disable using the Device Manager. I'd like to write a script to do this programmatically (that is, using the command line). I saw a program called devcon that ...
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votes
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How can ntfs.sys be loaded if the driver is located in an NTFS partition?
I was reading about NTFS and the use of the driver ntfs.sys and I was wondering how could the NTFS driver be loaded if it's on an NTFS partition.
I couldn't find any answer for this online and I was ...
- 471
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votes
10
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How can I disable my laptop's built-in keyboard in Windows 7?
I have a HP Compaq Presario C700 laptop with Windows 7 installed on it.
My laptop's keyboard is not working properly; some keys never work and some keys will keep on pressing. I've formatted the OS ...
- 709
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votes
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What exactly is a laptop "display audio" driver?
I've downloaded an Intel HD Graphics driver for my Dell laptop and the installer's welcome screen says it will install the following components:
Intel Graphics Driver
Intel Display Audio Driver
What ...
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Why does the Linux SCSI subsystem drive hardware not obviously related to SCSI?
Without knowledge, I would normally expect SATA, SCSI and USB Mass Storage to be driven by different drivers. In Linux however, the SCSI subsystem drives all of them.
Why does Linux use the SCSI ...
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votes
1
answer
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What is the difference between the different nVidia Quadro drivers?
I have a nVidia Quadro FX 1700 graphics card and there are different drivers offered at the nVidia driver page:
Quadro ODE Graphics Driver
Quadro Performance Driver
Quadro Partner Certified Driver
...
- 1,119
33
votes
5
answers
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Difference and relation between firmware and device driver
How are firmware and device driver
different and related? I think both
control devices?
Is firmware always self-booting,
while driver must be run/booted by OS?
- 17.4k
33
votes
10
answers
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How to print documents to pictures (gif, bmp etc.) on windows
What is the easiest way to capture the printout of a document in a picture (i.e. GIF, BMP etc.)? Making a screenshot does not help, since the printout is different and larger than the screen. Is there ...
- 2,279
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votes
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Why does Windows 7 ask for additional drivers when installing from a USB 3.0 drive?
I just bought a new config ( ASUS p8z68-v lx, i5-2500k + ram and new graphic card ).
Coming back and installing it in my old computer, I just saw that my DVD player was on IDE (yup…).
So, I needed to ...
- 305
29
votes
1
answer
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How do I delete folders from the Windows 7 DriverStore?
I am having a problem getting a specific device to work, and I am trying to start from square one by making sure there are absolutely no leftover files from driver installs on my system. Specifically ...
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28
votes
7
answers
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What is a UFR II printer driver and why might I use it in preference to another type?
A new printer recently showed up at work. There are an abundance of possible drivers for it applicable to my system (Windows 7, 64 bit) including PCL5, PCL5e, PCL6 and UFR II.
I'm familiar with PCL, ...
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27
votes
4
answers
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Windows: how to install driver from recovery command prompt?
I'm trying to enable Intel SRT on my laptop. To do this, I need to change SATA controller mode from AHCI to RAID. The problem is that windows has no drivers for RAID and I can't install it while ...
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27
votes
2
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How does the CPU communicate with the GPU before drivers are loaded? [duplicate]
As I understand it, GPUs have their own instruction sets, whose instructions are generated by the graphics drivers. The GPU instructions are then sent to the GPU. So, how does graphics communication ...
- 1,214
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Why should I install hardware drivers if my computer is working fine?
I've just installed Windows 7 on my PC.
I went online to look for drivers. For my motherboard, Foxconn offers LAN drivers, on-board audio drivers, and chipset drivers. And for my graphics card, ...
- 1,985
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votes
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answers
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How do I "safely" keep my NVidia card up to date?
Years and years ago, Nvidia made you figure out what driver you needed by hand. Later, they created a Java applet(?) that would figure it out for you. a few years ago, they created the geForce ...
- 460
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How to Automatically update all devices in device manager
In Windows device manager it is possible to "manually" start an automatic update of a device. But its very tedious, each device has to be clicked (as it is not known if that particular device has an ...
- 305
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votes
6
answers
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Virtual audio driver for Windows? [closed]
Is there any (possibly free or open-source) virtual WDM audio driver for Windows, with additional processing plugins, which would add one more layer between windows applications and actual sound card'...
- 559
23
votes
8
answers
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Why do my headphones not require drivers?
When I plug a new mouse or printer into my Mac, I need to install a new driver.
However, I recently plugged new head phones into my computer, and they just worked. Why don't I need to install a ...
- 4,829
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2
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Does the BIOS have some sort of generic 'drivers'
How does the BIOS control I/O devices without any form of drivers?
For example how is an image displayed whilst the computer is booting if the BIOS doesn't have any drivers for the graphics card.
...
- 870
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answers
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Can I safely delete the files created by NVIDIA display drivers?
Every time I install a NVIDIA driver the files get unzipped into C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver. I assume the setup copies the files to another location and this unzipped data is only useful for the ...
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votes
4
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Is there any point in installing a monitor driver?
I'm guessing that most of the world's PCs are running with a default "Plug & Play Monitor" driver which seems to work well enough, and having just swapped to a 2005FPW, installed the driver and ...
- 5,561
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Why must I install drivers BEFORE plugging in a new peripheral?
I've always found this to be curious about installation instructions for computer peripherals; most commonly, installation of USB hardware in Windows XP.
Installation instructions typically insist ...
- 5,805
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6
answers
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Where should I find drivers for my Windows computer if it didn't come with a driver disk?
I had to reformat my machine because I had a virus. My machine did not come with a driver disk. How can I install drivers after having reinstalled Windows?
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How to diagnose Blue Screens in Windows 7 (64bit)
Using programs like WhoCrashed and BlueScreenView you can see the BSOD and the errors but how do you tell exactly what's causing the BSOD?
I'm not sure if it's because of bad hardware, bad driver ...
ritch0s
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5
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Where can I find H2 JDBC driver?
http://www.h2database.com/html/download.html I don't see it on this website. Is there anything I missed?
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How can I emulate a 'fake' printer (driver) in Windows?
For testing, my application needs to send a document to the printer. I don't really want to print this out, so I am looking for a 'fake' printer driver which could essentially print to nothing. I know ...
- 2,700
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How to completely remove printer from Windows 7
I'm having some issues with my Canon Pixma IP1900 printer - it doesn't respond to any OS requests. I am using Windows 7 x64 with additional Canon drivers and the printer used to work ok, but recently ...
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votes
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I've disabled both my keyboard and mouse drivers, any way to enable them back via bmr?
As stated in the question, I've mistakenly disabled both my Windows drivers and can no longer move either of them. I'm stuck on the login screen
I've tried creating a dual boot with another windows, ...
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21
votes
2
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Create "Fake keys" that the computer interprets as real?
Explanation
Alright, so this is a photograph of the general layout of a keyboard.
What I'm wondering is: Is it possible to emulate extra keys on a keyboard other than the standard keys? For example, ...
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votes
8
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Play audio over network with Windows 7?
I have seen software for Linux systems that allows me to send the audio from one system to another over the network, is there such a software (a driver likely) for Windows, specificly XP but Vista and ...
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votes
6
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disable specific PCI device at boot
I've just reinstalled Debian on my Sony VAIO laptop, and my dmesg and virtual consoles all get spammed with the same messages over and over again.
[ 59.662381] hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB ...
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votes
11
answers
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Multiple monitors broken with Windows 10 upgrade
I have a HP ENVY 17-3200 (switchable graphics: Intel HD 4000 + AMD Radeon HD 7800M) with a triple monitor setup:
Laptop's builtin LVDS 1080p display
DisplayPort WQXGA display
DisplayPort 1080p ...
- 4,093
19
votes
3
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Where can I find a Windows 10 PCL5 driver for an unsupported LaserJet printer?
I have an HP LaserJet 1300 printer connected to my network via a JetDirect 250m LIO Internal Print Server. The printer works from any Windows 8.1 computer on my network, but I have been unable to find ...
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votes
8
answers
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When installing additional printer 32-bit drivers fails on Windows 7 64-bit I get the error "Selected printer driver not found", what should I do?
I've successfully installed Windows 7 (x64) and drivers for my Canon MP510, and have no problem printing with this setup.
There is another PC in the network running XP SP3, and I want to share the ...
19
votes
4
answers
26k
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How can I unload the Process Monitor driver without restarting?
I sometimes use Process Monitor for debugging software, and also play games online. Some of these games use BattlEye anti-cheat software, which refuses to allow the game to run after Process Monitor ...
- 528
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votes
6
answers
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Using keyboard disables touchpad left button for a second on Acer laptop in Windows 8.1
The problem is present in the whole system not only in games: desktop, chrome, games, everywhere.
When I press any "input key" on a keyboard for example in desktop I can't select the file by left ...
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votes
4
answers
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How to restart a video card driver in Windows 7?
Some times my video card driver (Intel GMA X4500HD) crashes and gets restarted automatically. But more often (almost every time I watch a flash-powered online video for a period of time) it just gets ...
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How to enable AHCI in Windows XP without reinstalling
This question is part of a larger list of things I'll need to do before installing a new SSD drive, but I think it deserves its own question.
Current setup: A dual-boot machine with Windows XP ...
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