Under every operating system out there, including Linux and Macintosh, we must install drivers to make sure our hardware works as expected. While it would be nice to live in a driverless world, much like Google Chrome’s OS is planned to be for their printers, I’m afraid it’s not an option for the mass majority of us. Depending on the distribution of GNU/Linux, you might have to install the drivers manually for your NVIDIA or ATI card, or it might install them automatically for you. If the latter is the case, it might not compile or configure the device correctly so it works for you, which was the case for me when my dad’s motherboard had an onboard NVIDIA video chip. We actually had to manually write out a XOrg configuration script, which sounds about as fun as it actually is. (In other words, no fun at all.)
In Windows, however, it’s nowhere near as nasty as it can be in Linux. Most times, we have pre-compiled drivers that work just by double clicking an executable file, then a simple reboot gets them working. Or in some cases, we have Windows Update provide a (older) driver which will work for everything but most games.
But what if you are doing a remote access into a newbie’s computer and trying to help them? Or if you’re on the job site and you can’t access the remote desktop that you need to work on? In these cases, I’d recommend a device finder, as I call them, but the truth is, they are designed to work in such a way that they can identify the devices in your PC so you don’t need to open them up. This is a time and life saver in helping people out remotely, as well as locally troubleshooting your computer. However, I only know of two programs that know how to do this, and today, I’ll be comparing both of them. Just to give people a heads up before starting into the review, I am testing these on a freshly installed copy of Windows XP SP2 from a Gateway image, but has two cards in the computer that weren’t on the image: an ATI 2400 HD Pro Video card, and a Conexant / Brooktree Corporation Fusion 878A Video Capture card. Neither are uncommon, however, the Conexant’s driver is a hard one to find. It has been updated to SP3, however, no more updates have been done at this point (due to the next update being the ATI Generic driver Windows Update has).
Unknown Devices starts out supporting up to Windows Vista, which means it hasn’t been updated to reflect Windows 7, however, it does legacy support all the way back to Windows 95. As you can see above, it not only fully supports both cards, but is able to find information on both of them. It also seems to be completely portable, only needing to be unzipped to a folder and run the executable. As you can see, it was able to find both cards with relative ease. It also has a nifty feature of uploading the device list to PasteBin so you can share that link with someone else or save the list to a file, which will save it as a text file. You can also search the internet based on it’s findings, so you can find your drivers with ease, and offers for you to visit Windows Update, just in case.
Unknown Device Identifier, also known as UDI, starts out by supporting from Windows 95 all the way up to Windows 7, as it states on it’s site, and has been tested both on Windows XP and 7 by yours truly, so I can back up it’s claims for the higher operating systems. As you can see see, it did find the cards as well, and if you open the secondary options by hitting the Plus button, it shows you the direct card type. It supports English, French, and what appears to be Chinese, you can also save the results to a file and find the drivers via Google in one of the menus, as well as being able to contact the vendors. Unlike Unknown Devices, you can also print this said list inside the program. However, it will nag you when you close the program to see if you’d like to back up your drivers; if you hit yes, it brings you to the site to buy MyDrivers, a $40 program. Also, UDI also leaves a shortcut to the Huntersoft/Zhangduo site on your desktop after install.
Personal Opinion
Between the two of them, they both detected the cards I had put in the system to test, both of them had the option to save my results, and both allowed me to look up the drivers in Google. My opinion on them is mixed, and they certainly are both fast at what they do. However, if I was to choose one, it would be Unknown Device Identifier since it works up to and including Windows 7. When Unknown Devices gets to that point, I certainly will recommend it over UDI, due to the fact that I’m not interested in buying a driver backup software (as my drivers are all backed up to a CD-ROM).