Driver Booster v10.1 Review (Free Driver Updater)

Driver Booster is a free driver updater program for Windows that checks for outdated drivers for your hardware regularly and even downloads and updates all the drivers with one click.

Every driver package is downloaded directly through the program, and batch downloading makes it easy to get multiple device driver updates with one click.

Driver Booster Capabilities

Driver Booster boasts an impressive list of attributes:

• Works with Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Window 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
• Millions of device drivers are supported
• Definitions for those devices update automatically and frequently, meaning there's no need to manually update the program every time a new driver is added to the database
• A driver's version number, size, and release date are displayed next to each driver that needs to be updated (in the Driver Details window), helping to identify the size and age of a new driver before it gets updated
• You can export the list of outdated drivers to a TXT file, which includes the device name, class, vendor, current and available version, hardware ID, and compatible ID
• Installation windows and other pop-ups are hidden to make installation as easy and quick as possible
• The list of drivers found in Driver Booster are labeled according to the severity of the update, two examples being Extremely Old and Old
• You can set up the computer to automatically reboot or shut down when the installation finishes 
• Drivers that are already up to date are also shown, but in a separate section from the outdated ones
• The number of days since you last scanned with Driver Booster is shown on the main screen
• It also checks for outdated game components, like Microsoft DirectX Runtime
• An option in the settings lets you have the program auto-delete driver packages after they've been used for an installation, which is an easy way to make sure it's not collecting useless junk files
• Tools is a section that includes some tools for fixing sound errors, correcting network failures, cleaning up data related to unplugged devices, and fixing resolution issues by cleaning up driver data. There's also a "system information" area that shows details about the computer and operating system

Driver Booster, Explored

If you're looking for an easy-to-use driver updater, Driver Booster is likely your best bet. We didn't encounter errors with downloads in our testing, and installs have never caused problems like BSOD errors or bricked hardware.

The updates don't launch in a web browser, so you don't have to download these drivers manually as you might with other driver updater tools. That's far too much of a hassle that might even deter some from updating their drivers, and it can sometimes lead to clicking the incorrect download link.

The program cannot scan correctly unless an active internet connection is established (some driver updaters don't need a network connection to scan). It will look like it's working, but without network access, it will simply scan without using any factual update information, which results in displaying an incorrect set of updates (or none at all).

Because there's also a professional version of Driver Booster, some features are limited in the free version. For example, millions of additional drivers are supported in the professional program. Features like automatically downloading and backing up drivers, and automatic program updates, aren't options in the free edition.