Driver Magician 2.5 - User Guide and FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions - Driver Magician

1. What's the difference between "Search All Drivers" and "Search Non-Microsoft drivers" submenu of Backup button in the toolbar?
   We all know that every Windows operating system is distributed with a lot of device drivers packaged in it. So the difference between "Search All Drivers" and "Search Non-Microsoft drivers" is that the former one searches all device drivers including those packaged within Microsoft Windows operating system while the latter one only searches drivers not contained in Windows. Because device drivers which are contained in Windows operating system are automatically installed when detected by it, so it is NOT necessary to back them up. To let you distinguish Microsoft provided drivers and Non-Microsoft provided drivers easily, the latter ones are in red font.
   
   
2. What happens when I take the option to 'Restore'? Does it know where to place the files, or does it run any 'Setup.exe' program it may find?
   Driver Magician can restore driver from driver backup without any 'setup.exe' program. Each device driver has an installation file (you can find it in each folder of device driver backup with name as *.inf), it tells any driver setup program where to place each driver file, so Driver Magician simulates driver setup program and extracts information from the installation files to restore drivers to your machine.
   
   
3. Driver version of some device drivers is null, why?
   Because installation files of these drivers don't include the driver version, so Driver Magician can't extract it. This often happens in Windows 98 and Windows Me.
   
   
4. During the driver restoration process, why does my computer seem to be no responses?
   Device driver is in the lower layer of operating system, so during driver installation, settings of Windows operating system change according to the drivers installed, it leads to no responses of system.
   
   
5. After Driver Magician runs, I find there is no driver in the listview, what happens?
   Driver Magician goes directly to driver backup function window after it runs and all the Non-Microsoft drivers will show in the listview. If all the device drivers of your computer are provided by Microsoft, the listview is blank. This usually happens after you format and reinstall operating system just now. To show all the device drivers in your computer, please click the "Search All Drivers" submenu of backup button in the toolbar.
   
   
6. When I restore device drivers of my computer using Driver Magician in Windows 98/Me, Windows prompts me to insert driver disk, what happens?
   You don't need to insert driver disk, please just click the OK button in the prompt dialog, if the same dialog appears again, just click the Ignore button. But when it prompt you to insert Windows CD-ROM, you should insert it. If you find your audio card is mute after driver restoration, please reboot your machine again and it will be OK. This happens only in Windows 98/Me operating system. Since they are old in all of Microsoft Windows operating systems, something is special.
   
   
7. When I restore device drivers in Windows XP, a "Find new hardware wizard" window appears, what should I do?
   You don't need to do anything, just let it be. After drivers of the found hardware are restored, the "Find new hardware wizard" window will automatically disappear.
   
   
8. After I have downloaded and installed the drivers Driver Magician informed me to update, it still informed me to update the same driver, is it a bug of Driver Magician?
   Driver Magician determines driver update by checking the driver release date of the same devices in your PC and in driver update database. If it finds the driver release date of certain device in the driver update database is later than the one in your PC, it will inform you to update the new driver. But some driver packages contain drivers of several devices and the release date of these devices driver are not the same, such as VIA Hyperion 4-IN-1 driver and Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, it is impossible to give the release date of each device in such driver package. so Driver Magician sometime will inform you to update the driver even after you installed the updated one.