Aida32 and other similar programs?

[Red Squirrel]

Been a while since I've had to deal with hunting for windows drivers as I normally don't deal with windows much now days, but faced with it now. Back in the day I used a program called Aida32 which would list all the hardware, even if the driver is not installed. This would then make it possible to know what driver to even search for. going by the computer manufacturer often does not work as they might use a bunch of different parts for the same model.

What is the program people use for this now days? Basically just need it to scan and list all the hardware and it needs to be able to run off a USB and not require internet (since most of the time if I'm trying to install drivers it means there won't be any network!).

This particular machine is a laptop I really don't want to have to open it to check the hardware.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I found aida64 as I searched for aida32 to see what comes up. It's trialware, but helped point me in the right direction as far as what devices are in there. Though I'm not sure if it used the internet to get the list, as I had actually found the WLAN driver first by checking the FCC information at the bottom.

Ugh, this is why I don't normally fix people's computers anymore. Not worth the time and effort especially when it involves a format and having to find drivers. This is more of a favor I'm doing for someone.

 

[JackMDS]

Freeware Portable - https://www.hwinfo.com/

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Ugh, this is why I don't normally fix people's computers anymore. Not worth the time and effort especially when it involves a format and having to find drivers. This is more of a favor I'm doing for someone.

To be fair, the post-8 versions of Windows are fairly good with regards to driver support. You generally don't need anything other then what Windows Update provides. At most you'll need a specific WiFi driver to connect to WU. With 10, drivers are a non-issue. WU just downloads what is needed. There are even a few cases where you can't get drivers anywhere else (f.x. Radeon HD4000 series).

The exception is graphics drivers. The WU versions will work, but are out-of-date. Those you'll want to download directly from AMD/NV/Intel to get the latest version.

 

[Yakk]

I've been using Driver Booster to keep all drivers to date on my gaming rigs for that last 1-2 years. Makes a restore point before upgrading, let's though select which success individually, works fine & free.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Freeware Portable - https://www.hwinfo.com/

Cool I'll save that one for later. I need to reorganize my local "downloads" web page as lot of stuff in there is super out of date haha.

I did end up getting all the hardware to work with some brute force and creativity. FCC ID on the bottom lead me to the WLAN driver and from there the rest was a bit easier as a few of the drivers were actually found by the built in Windows driver find tool once the internet was working.

To be fair, the post-8 versions of Windows are fairly good with regards to driver support. You generally don't need anything other then what Windows Update provides. At most you'll need a specific WiFi driver to connect to WU. With 10, drivers are a non-issue. WU just downloads what is needed. There are even a few cases where you can't get drivers anywhere else (f.x. Radeon HD4000 series).

The exception is graphics drivers. The WU versions will work, but are out-of-date. Those you'll want to download directly from AMD/NV/Intel to get the latest version.

Yeah it has gotten better, I remember in the win98 days and even 2000 pretty much nothing would get found, not even video. So you were stuck working at 640x480 until you can get the video driver to work.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Yeah it has gotten better, I remember in the win98 days and even 2000 pretty much nothing would get found, not even video. So you were stuck working at 640x480 until you can get the video driver to work.

Ah, the memories. It was even funnier if you had a non-standard IDE or SCSI controller, you couldn't even install Windows without providing a driver on a floppy...

Things have indeed gotten a lot better.