Driver Boost

Driver Boost has been recommended numerous times in this forum to people having problems with Sonar.  It is supposed to check all your drivers for updates automatically.  It then, typically, reports when your driver are out of date, and has a function to update those drivers in one fell swoop.  I used this on my system, it reported 12 drivers out of date, and I let it update those drivers.  Fortunately, before I used it, I made a list of the out-of-date drivers, created a restore point, and let it update the drivers.  Unfortunately, it made my system inoperable after running it!  I was able to do a system restore and revert back to where I was before I started.  I, then, uninstalled Driver Boost and my system is running normally again.
 
Using the list that Driver Boost provided me, I manually went into Device Manager and checked each driver individually.  All 12 drivers that had been reported out-of-date were actually up-to-date.  I double checked these by going to the manufacturer's sites and verifying that my drivers were indeed the latest.
 
My words of caution to all:  if you use any free program that checks your computer for drivers, malware, adware, or any other bugaboo, beware!  They often/usually report that there are numerous problems with your machine, at which point they offer to sell you their "professional" version of their software to get rid of the problems.  If you don't buy their "pro" version, the free software often tends to behave like a virus on your system.  Unless you're particularly savvy, you may not realize these freebies are causing you problems.  To those who recommend this program, please realize that you may inadvertently be causing problems in people's operating systems, leaving them worse off than before.  If you do use these programs, remember to ALWAYS create a restore point first!  And, buyer beware!

As I have been outspoken in another thread and having many years of IT Sys Admin (Microsoft/Linux/Citrix) experience under my belt I would STRONGLY advise....
 
DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE.

1. Its not been tested thoroughly by trusted sources

2. Its a security risk

3. You COULD invalidate any warranty you have.

4. No software company you have a license for will begin to troubleshoot for you if you install third party drivers.

5. just dont go there, its for "power Users" (a professionals nightmare, nothing worse than a googler that "fixes their system")

6. PLEASE IF UNSURE DONT GO THERE!!! Many people know an IT professional and if you can ask their advice, if not, dont try and fix it via third party all in one "boosts" or "Fixes", the chances are you will end up with a problem even greater than where you started.

7. Use the tried and tested routes. Forums like this give great advice but ALWAYS check with official documentation first such as Sonars and Microsofts for a start.

8. You have been warned!
 

On the whole I agree about what is said about weirdo third party utils, however in DriverBoosts case what I see it works for some people but not for others... simple as that. It has to be used... carefully...

At the end of the day there is absolutely no substitute for going to third party websites and investigating yourself, all applications produce false positives and to be honest if it says your machine needs 10 drivers updating I would stand back and wonder if there has been a misdetection somehow (but that's just me). Number one piece of advice though - backup. Even legit drivers can screw your system.

CakeAlexS
 - backup. Even legit drivers can screw your system.

 
This is especially true with workstations designed for a primary purpose like video or audio editing. If your system is working fine as is, updating drivers can cause nightmares.  A co-worker once totally fried an Avid syetm just by innocently updating the version of Quicktime.  Turns out the version of Avid at that time had a conflict with the new version  and would not work even after we tried to rollback.

On my drivers booster thread you've got to look at post #1 for install instructions. The simple truth is it works for some and not for others, all the evidence is out there, and from my own personal experience as well. I  Of course bad experiences are going to carry a lot more weight. Let the debate continue but really in order to assess it, you need to install and test it yourself, rather than judge from a distance. BTW I don't think people alledge anything, they just give their own heart felt opinions and experiences, it's up to you if you decide that the advise is good or bad and that is fine.

Lynn
You allege that most people are using "something like this as a shortcut", but I wonder about that statement.  Do you have any statistics to back that up?  As you point out, resist offers to "upgrade" and disable any "automatic" features.  Yet, that is the raison d'etre of these programs.  If one has to be SO extremely careful when using a program like this, then it's likely BOGUS to begin with.  And btw, I doubt that "wildly clicking without reading" is the heart of this problem, what reading material are you referring to?  The instructions for this program are fairly straight-forward.

 
Sorry if you took my statements as an implication you were somehow doing this wrong.  This product is a shortcut. I don't say that as a bad thing. It's a product designed to save a person the time of going to every website to find every updated driver. I don't think that requires proof anymore than baking a cake using a box is a shortcut to making everything from scratch.  It seems pretty self evident.  I would not disagree that we should not have to be so careful, but I apply the same standard when applying updates from trusted sources.  Recently one of MS' updates caused black lines to appear in video.  It was a known issue that has since been fixed. At no point did I say that EVERYONE who ran into trouble did so because of "wildly clicking" or that you did so.  I just stated the fact that such actions could lead to trouble.  Would you dispute that? 

dubdisciple

Lynn
You allege that most people are using "something like this as a shortcut", but I wonder about that statement.  Do you have any statistics to back that up?  As you point out, resist offers to "upgrade" and disable any "automatic" features.  Yet, that is the raison d'etre of these programs.  If one has to be SO extremely careful when using a program like this, then it's likely BOGUS to begin with.  And btw, I doubt that "wildly clicking without reading" is the heart of this problem, what reading material are you referring to?  The instructions for this program are fairly straight-forward.

 
Sorry if you took my statements as an implication you were somehow doing this wrong.  This product is a shortcut. I don't say that as a bad thing. It's a product designed to save a person the time of going to every website to find every updated driver. I don't think that requires proof anymore than baking a cake using a box is a shortcut to making everything from scratch.  It seems pretty self evident.  I would not disagree that we should not have to be so careful, but I apply the same standard when applying updates from trusted sources.  Recently one of MS' updates caused black lines to appear in video.  It was a known issue that has since been fixed. At no point did I say that EVERYONE who ran into trouble did so because of "wildly clicking" or that you did so.  I just stated the fact that such actions could lead to trouble.  Would you dispute that? 

I don't dispute you on that matter.  I have no problem with your post at all.  It was mainly a rhetorical question on my part.  In fact, you bring up a good point about upgrades from trusted sources.  I, too, did an upgrade from MS that messed up my system until they fixed it a couple of days later.  That made me  question why I would fix something that was working perfectly before.  Thanks for reminding me of that.

Alex, it's good to know that you don't think like a lawyer.

CakeAlexS
>  It's just when a statement is presented without evidence or identifying it as opinion, then some will take it as fact, which may be misleading.
 
Everything is subjective. 

Alex, it's good to know that you don't think like a lawyer.

> So, no, I don't think it is a good idea to "install it and see for yourself" at all.
 
I just want to clarify in case this quote from somewhere gets attached to what I said which was "Let the debate continue but really in order to assess it, you need to install and test it yourself, rather than judge from a distance."
 
Of course that is the only actual way you are going to be able assess software, and if you don't wish to assess the software and rely on opinion then that's perfectly fine and valid. I am unaware of any stats on the effectiveness of driver boost but as I said earlier obviously the bad stories will outweigh the good, all software suffers from it as nothing is perfect.
 
Oh and what you say I agree with mostly.

I would never use anything like Driver Boost. Ever.

At the end of the day, before updating....

Think once, think twice and then THINK AGAIN!!!
 
Make absolutely sure you are updating drivers FOR THE RIGHT REASON, not because you have some blind problem with your software....

Having said that, in the audio world, Sound Card Driver updates are often worth updating but ALWAYS read the documentation before doing so and then make a well judged reason having read said documentation before updating and ALWAYS create a restore point.

Software is different however, The latest version can tempt you into updating and often charges a fee (Sonar X3, PT 11 for example)...But, again fundamentally the same rules apply, work out if you ACTUALLY need these updates.

If it aint broke, dont try and fix it, and if it is broke WORK OUT what is broken BEFORE you fix it.
 

meh

Readers, the above post from ohgrant contains a link to a program that he recommends instead of Driver Boost.  I thought it might be a link to a website where I could read about AIDA64, but, instead, it immediately began downloading the program into my computer.  I cancelled the download right away because I don't know where this DL is coming from, and I wasn't given an opportunity to decide for myself whether I wanted it or not.  I'm very leery of downloading programs from unknown sources, and, although I don't mean to imply that ohgrant's program is harmful, I would have liked to have known that this was going to occur.  So, be aware if you click on his link that the program will download onto your computer.  I'm not judging his program because I have no intention of trying it.  Buyer beware!