Many programs we recommended during the Widows 98 and long Windows XP era, are no longer needed and may, in fact, be detrimental. We’ve been remiss in UN-recommending programs we once recommended. We will try to do better.<\/p>\n
We’ve noticed in our experience with Cloudeight Direct, fixing computers, \u00a0that many of you have installed driver updater programs like Driver Detective (indeed once recommended by us) and serveral others. So for the record we are officially un-recommending any and all driver updater programs\u00a0we may have recommended over the years.<\/p>\n
Why? Our experience has taught us many things, but one of the most important thing is:\u00a0If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Installing updated drivers when the hardware associated with that driver or depending on that driver is working fine, isn’t going to result in the hardware working better, most of the time. And sometimes installing a new driver can lead to serious Windows problems. One problem, Blue Screens of Death (BSODs) are,\u00a0most of the time, caused by installing incorrect drivers.<\/p>\n
The problem with driver updater programs like Driver Detective is that they are (like all software) dumb. They don’t check to see if your hardware is functioning well, they don’t know if you’re having problems with a certain hardware driver or device, they simple check your drivers and see if there are newer versions of those drivers available — and if there are, they download and install them. Most of the time there is no reason to install new drivers for anything — especially if everything is working as it should. The ONLY time you should ever worry about updating drivers is if one of your hardware devices is not working correctly.<\/p>\n
If you are currently using a driver updater program (whether we once recommended it or not) we recommend that you uninstall it and only install new drivers if you are experiencing problems with your computer’s hardware devices. Or as the old adage suggests — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you do need new drivers because one of your hardware devices isn’t working correctly, you can download the latest drivers for that device from the device manufacturer’s web site — and that is the ONLY place you should ever get them.<\/p>\n
While we’re on the subject of programs we once recommended and no longer do, we would both like to recommend right now that any of you with Advanced System Care (free or paid version) from Iobit (or ANYTHING else from that company) uninstall it. At the time we recommended it, we felt it was a good program with some worthy features. Unfortunately, like so many programs, it has become an overgrown nuisance that can actually cause more problems than it fixes. In fact, it more resembles malware than it does a helpful program. During our experiences with Cloudeight Direct Computer Care, we’ve found many of you use Advanced System Care and\u00a0we\u00a0found it was causing problems. We have removed it from the computers we’ve worked on and we suggest that you remove this program if you are still using it. We also recommend that you uninstall anything from IOBIT – most of their software is annoying, useless, and borders on malware.<\/p>\n
We will be “un-recommending” other programs when we become aware of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Un-recommending Some Stuff Many programs we recommended during the Widows 98 and long Windows XP era, are no longer needed and may, in fact, be detrimental. We’ve been remiss in UN-recommending programs we once recommended. We will try to do better. We’ve noticed in our experience with Cloudeight Direct, fixing computers, \u00a0that many of you have installed driver\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9559,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions\/9559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}