Smart Driver Updater Editor's Review

Keep your PC's hardware working to the best of its ability with this important Windows utility.

One of the most important parts of any operating system as the drivers for each component under the hood or connected to your computer.  Having really good drivers can mean the difference between your PC running well, your performance tanking or not being to use either an accessory or peripheral or the entire PC.  This is especially important with newer operating systems, as updates to drivers can come, literally, all the time.  At that point, versioning can become an issue as app and driver installers are notorious for leaving artifacts behind and in some cases, drivers can even become outdated. This is why I really like Smart Driver Updater.  It helps you find and keep the best drivers for your Windows PC, up to date.

Just because a file is a driver file, doesn't mean that it's excluded from errors and other kinds of file corruptions that happen to other Windows components.  As peripherals and accessories move through their life cycle, drivers get updated and your copies can become out dated, quickly; and you often won't know if that happens. Most computer connected devices don't have auto-updaters. 

Sometimes, installation processes can go sideways and an update gets applied incorrectly.  Or sometimes OTHER drivers get updated, and that update effects the performance of another peripheral or accessory because they share some kind of soft-component...  When something like this happens, it can take one, the other or both drivers – and devices – down.

Provided that the device or accessory isn't damaged, all you likely need to do is update the actual driver file(s) for any related accessories and you're back in business. Unfortunately, trying manually track this stuff down can be a HUGE headache. I know from firsthand experience. It can be a nightmare, especially if you're trying to update drivers for more than one device at a time. This is where Smart Driver Updater comes to your rescue.

Smart Driver Updater has a database of over 600,000 drivers. The app's database is constantly updated and edited to make sure that the best driver updates are available. With Smart Driver Updater, you'll always have the latest driver updates available to you.

Having a Windows PC – especially for someone like me who is constantly testing both software and hardware – means that you're always only a few months away from a complete tear down and rebuild of your PC.  If you ever have to nuke the hard drive and start from scratch, getting right back where you were with all of your drivers is very easy with Smart Driver Updater. It backs up all of your drivers to a zip file that is easily exported, giving you a quick, easy way to get back to where you were.

App Pro’s: Supports drivers for over 600,000 devices, supports most common versions of Windows, current drivers ensure top performance

App Con’s: Doesn't support Windows 8.x, according to the product website

Conclusion: Smart Driver Updater isn’t the kind of application that has a lot of bells and whistles. It's no nonsense, pragmatic approach to keeping your computer's and peripheral's drivers updated and current isn't going to be the application that you ache to run every time you boot up your PC... That is, until it saves your bacon.  Then, you're probably not going to want to run your computer without it.

The app's Scheduler gives you standard "set it and forget it" functionality. Once activated, the app will scan your drivers at startup or at a day and time during the week or month and tell you what needs updating.  Putting that in place should be part of EVERY Windows PC's boot process so that your PC is always running at peak performance.