Driver Talent v8.1.9.20

A full review of Driver Talent, a free driver updater tool

By
Tim Fisher
Photo of Tim Fisher, Lifewire GM and Writer
Tim Fisher
Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability
  • Emporia State University

Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.

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Updated on March 23, 2023

Driver Talent (previously called DriveTheLife) is a free driver updater tool that finds outdated, corrupted, and missing device drivers on your computer so you don't have to manually search for them online.

The program itself is clutter-free and supports a number of features, all of which you'd expect from a program like this.

Driver Talent outdated driver
What We Like

  • Very easy to use.

  • Installs really quickly.

  • Downloads drivers directly through the program.

  • Fast download speeds.

  • Backs up drivers automatically before updates and uninstallations.

What We Don't Like

  • Can't modify the automatic scanning schedule.

  • Must download each driver one at a time (no bulk downloads).

  • Installations aren't automatic.

  • Several plugs to buy the pro version.

  • Identified as malware by some antivirus programs.

This review is of Driver Talent version 8.1.9.20. Please let us know if there's a newer version we need to review.

More About Driver Talent

Driver Talent is a feature-rich driver updater that even lets you reinstall drivers that don't have an update, something that can really be helpful if you're trying to solve a driver issue.

Here are some other facts:

  • Finds drivers for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP, as well as Windows Server
  • You can see an updated driver's version number, file size, and release date to make sure you're getting a genuine update
  • Before updating a driver, you can choose a different version than the most recent one if you'd like to install a specific version of that driver instead of the most recently released one
  • Driver Talent can reinstall any installed driver even if it doesn't require an update
  • Peripheral devices that are misbehaving can be corrected through the Peripheral Drivers tab
  • Use Driver Talent for Network Card to install an offline version of Driver Talent that includes network drivers, which is useful if you don't have the network driver needed to install updates
  • You can adjust the maximum download speed to save bandwidth

Thoughts on Driver Talent

To start off, Driver Talent looks real nice. The interface is simple and clean without any advertisements or extra menus to distract you. This makes it much easier to use than some similar programs.

The Driver Status tab tells you which device drivers need to be updated and which ones were detected but already current. This is a great feature because you can very clearly see the version of the new driver and its file size, and the download button is right there to make it all very easy to understand.

We recommend using Driver Talent for finding drivers for your devices even though it doesn't support bulk downloads and auto-installs like some driver updater tools do. While you do have to start a scan manually, it definitely beats searching and downloading them yourself.

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