Computer Hope

When going to the Device Manager and clicking on update driver on whatever, is it telling the truth when it says that the correct driver is already installed?

New drivers should only be installed if there is a specific need or reason to do so. Easily 20% of the problems reported on Windows help forums such as this are the result of updating drivers that were previously working just fine. When you do update a driver, it should be downloaded from the website of the OEM (or computer manufacturer) and installed "manually" by you. Drivers for laptops should be obtained ONLY from the website of the laptop manufacturer.

Thanks, but if the device manager is saying this driver is the best that you have, why install another? Are there better drivers as on the HP site that are better?

Again, it doesn't matter. If you are not experiencing any issues or if there are no new features you need, forget about updating drivers.

But to answer your question - there might very well be drivers on the HP site that are NEWER. When you try to update drivers via Device Manger, Windows only looks for WHQL drivers. Those are drivers certified by Microsoft as being compatible with most hardware. It is not unusual for Microsoft to bastardize drivers provided to them by the OEM for certification in order to make them widely compatible. In doing so, they may disable certain new features introduced by the OEM even though those features are why the driver was released in the first place.  Personally, I've never worried about certification. And if your system is an HP computer you can certainly feel comfortable downloading drivers from the HP website INSTEAD of through device manager.

But again - the best advice I can offer the typical user is to NOT update drivers unless there is a specific reason or need to do so.

Thanks, patio, good response for sure.