Installing drivers in 2021 - Am I a dinosaur?

Nope, you are not doing it wrong. Depending on the hardware, the most up-to-date drivers may already be included with Win10.

As the saying goes...'if it ain't broken and all that. Why try and change tested & proven method.

hystavito wrote: ↑ When I setup a new Windows installation I install drivers basically the same as decades ago, go to manufacturer page download them and install them one by one. Am I doing it wrong?

hystavito wrote: ↑ When I setup a new Windows installation I install drivers basically the same as decades ago, go to manufacturer page download them and install them one by one. Am I doing it wrong?

No. Things have changed. Windows 10 will install them for you. I assume you meant Windows 10 by "Windows". It may not install drivers for some obscure and old hardware, you will have to find them the old style.

alpovs wrote: ↑ No. Things have changed. Windows 10 will install them for you. I assume you meant Windows 10 by "Windows". It may not install drivers for some obscure and old hardware, you will have to find them the old style.

So there's no point installing drivers manually nowadays? They aren't any better/newer than what Windows 10/11 will have?

I know Windows has been installing drivers for a long time but I guess I still had the old thinking that the ones from the manufacturer might perform better, be more reliable, or something that could be better in some way.

Windows is getting better in terms of hardware support but especially without internet you're still on your own.
In practically every setup I've ever done, there's always something missing that you have to install manually.

hystavito wrote: ↑ So there's no point installing drivers manually nowadays? They aren't any better/newer than what Windows 10/11 will have?

I know Windows has been installing drivers for a long time but I guess I still had the old thinking that the ones from the manufacturer might perform better, be more reliable, or something that could be better in some way.

Oh, sure you can install newer drivers. I do that for Nvidia cards for example. You sounded like you didn't know that Windows will install drivers for you like it was with XP. That's why I wrote what I wrote.

I was pleased with the way windows handles it too. Was pretty great.

windows update can find drivers for most things but alot of times the drivers can be months behind what the newest ones are if u got the manufacturer driver directly from there site. for most hardware it don't matter all that much but somethings like gpu drivers its best to have the latest one mainly if u game chipset drivers are also one that is good to keep updated and AMD don't seem to bother to have there chipset drivers offered via windows update so windows just installs some generic one that sure it works but might not work as good as the official AMD one. or like samsung nvme drives windows will just install a generic driver but samsung offers there own driver witch can add a tiny been more performance nothing huge.

hystavito wrote: ↑ When I setup a new Windows installation I install drivers basically the same as decades ago, go to manufacturer page download them and install them one by one. Am I doing it wrong?

I always let W10 install, then I go to the manufacturers website and look at the MB drivers and version numbers and compare to the ones that W10 installs. Sometimes the mobo website providers better drivers then what W10 installs. Sometimes even W10 installs generic drivers. Lan, audio, wifi, bt, etc.

Windows update has become decent at finding most drivers, but it is not perfect. Sometimes you don't want it to install a newer version, sometimes it will overwrite a version you installed with an inferior one it deems correct.

The drivers included with windows 10 may not be the best you can get, sure they might work but you might not be taking full advantage of the hardware/device's capabilities and extra features. This tends to be the case with graphics cards, the generic drivers usually limit what resolutions and refresh rates you can use and performance can be choppy.