Last week I got a live chat request asking if I could help him find Windows XP driver for HP Pavilion A6540D. That HP desktop came with Vista pre-installed and there is no XP drivers for that model of PC in official HP website. We could easily downgrade from Vista to XP if we have the XP installation disc but the problem is we have to look for the drivers. If you didn’t know, even if the PC vendors such as Acer, HP and Dell doesn’t provide official XP drivers, we can still find working XP drivers for your computer hardware from the “manufacturer’s” website.

If we’re lucky, someone might have already searched for the correct drivers and posted it on the web. If not, it is very troublesome to identify each unknown devices, search for the drivers, download and test it. Let’s take my Acer laptop as an example. I downgraded from Vista to XP and there is 10 unknown devices (Audio, LAN, FingerPrinter Reader, Mass Storage Controller, Modem, Wireless, SM Bus, Video and 2 unrecognized devices)!

No way I am going to spend hours or perhaps even days looking up drivers for each unknown devices so I’ve figured out a way to automatically do it.


There are software that could scan your whole system for outdated or missing drivers and you can install the latest drivers with a few simple clicks without even searching the Internet. Every hardware has a unique ID and these software uses them to cross check with their driver database to find if there is a newer one available for your computer. So far I found

Do take note that different computer should get different results from the driver updating software. This test is done on my new laptop pre-installed with Windows Vista that was purchased 4 months ago. I installed Windows XP and used the software below to scan for drivers using my USB wireless broadband (Celcom) because there is no default drivers for my network card.

1. Driver Detective v6.4.0.4 ($29.95)
Found drivers for: Audio, FingerPrinter Reader, LAN, Mass Storage Controller, Modem, SM Bus, Video, Wireless.

2. Uniblue DriverScanner 2009 v2.0.0.49 (29.95)
Found drivers for: Audio, Chipset, LAN, Modem, SM Bus, Video, Wireless.

3. Driver Magician v3.4 ($29.95)
Found drivers for: Audio, Chipset, LAN, SmartCard Reader, Video, Wireless.

4. Driver Agent v2.2009.2.11 ($29.95)
Found drivers for: Audio, LAN, Mass Storage, SM Bus, Video, Wireless.

5. Driver Updater Pro v2.2.8.0 ($29.95)
Found drivers for: Audio, LAN, SM Bus, Video, Wireless

6. Driver Genius Professional v8.0.0.316 ($29.95)
Found drivers for: Network

7. ParetoLogic DriverCure v1.1 ($29.95)
Unable to detect unknown device drivers.

8. Driver Checker v2.7 ($29.95)
Unable to detect unknown device drivers

9. Driver Robot v1.0 ($29.95)
Unable to detect unknown device drivers

10. DriverGuide Toolkit v2.1.45 ($19.95)
This tool is very weird. On the test laptop that doesn’t have a single driver installed, it ONLY display a list of 11 unknown devices. When searching for updates, it found a total of 17 updates but there is no DOWNLOAD button to download the driver. However when I tested it on another XP computer that has all drivers installed, it worked as normal.

11. RadarSync 2009 v2.0.0.7 (Freeware)
Unable to detect unknown device drivers

12. DriverMax v4.91 (Freeware)
Found drivers for: Audio, Chipset, LAN, Modem, SM Bus, Texas Instrument PCMCIA, Wireless

From what I found out, there is NOT a single software including the paid ones that can identify all unknown devices. Driver Detective performed the best by detecting 8 out of 10. Best part is it can even detect the model of my Acer laptop! You should also take note of DriverMax, a free software for looking the latest driver did pretty well by finding 7 out of 10! The only thing that I didn’t like about DriverMax is you must first obtain a free license code by registering an account.

Most of the paid software above cost $29.95 and all of them allows you to “scan” for free during the trial period but you CANNOT download the drivers. There are keygens and cracks for most of it but don’t ask me where to get it (Google is your best friend).

If XP has a working default driver for your network card, then you can just go ahead and use the software to scan for updated drivers. If not, you will need to find a way to get a temporary internet connection (built-in modem to dial up to your ISP, wireless broadband, wired broadband via USB DSL modem) and use the software above to find and download the network ethernet driver first. Once you got your network card working, you can now use your fast broadband to download the rest.

Tip: You can also try going to Microsoft Windows Update to find for drivers. It only manage to find a driver for my wireless card, hopefully it can find more for your computer.