Drivers, What is a driver, Identifying drivers – Dell XPS 410 (Mid 2007) User Manual

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Troubleshooting Tools

Drivers

What Is a Driver?

A driver is a program that controls a device such as a printer, mouse, or keyboard. All devices require a
driver program.

A driver acts like a translator between the device and any programs that use the device. Each device has
its own set of specialized commands that only its driver recognizes.

Dell ships your computer to you with required drivers already installed—no further installation or
configuration is needed.

Many drivers, such as the keyboard driver, come with your Microsoft

®

Windows

®

operating system.

You may need to install drivers if you:

Upgrade your operating system

Reinstall your operating system

Connect or install a new device

Identifying Drivers

If you experience a problem with any device, identify whether the driver is the source of your problem
and, if necessary, update the driver.

Windows XP

1 Click Start, then click Control Panel.
2 Click System.
3 In the System Properties window, click the Hardware tab.
4 Click Device Manager.
5 Scroll down the list to see if any device has an exclamation point (a yellow circle with a [!]) on the

device icon.

If an exclamation point is next to the device name, you may need to reinstall the driver or install a new
driver.

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