DriverMax v15 Review

A Full Review of DriverMax, 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 February 1, 2023

DriverMax is a free driver updater tool that supports automated installs, scheduled scans, and full device driver backups, among other things.

A major limitation with DriverMax is that the free version lets you download only a certain number of drivers per day and per month. However, this probably isn't a limitation that'll cause you much inconvenience.

DriverMax outdated drivers list
What We Like

  • Automated installations.

  • Prompts you to create a restore point before installing drivers.


  • Downloads drivers directly through the program.

  • Can identify unknown hardware.

  • Option to ensure only signed drivers are installed.

  • Can create a backup of all your drivers.

  • Setup doesn't install unnecessary programs.

What We Don't Like

  • Can't download more than two drivers per day.

  • Can't download more than 10 drivers per month.

  • Can't download more than one driver at once.

  • Requires an internet connection to find outdated device drivers.

  • Has been known to find incorrect drivers.

  • Some features appear free until you try using them.

  • Some security software identify it as a potentially unwanted program (PuP).

This review is of DriverMax version 15. Please let us know if there's a newer version we need to review.

More About DriverMax

DriverMax does a lot of its work automatically and supports every recent version of Windows:

  • Finds driver updates for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP, including all Windows Server editions
  • DriverMax can bet set to check for updated drivers any time of day every day, week, or month
  • After a scan is run, DriverMax lists not only the outdated drivers but also the ones that are already fully up to date
  • Device drivers can be backed up and restored, as well as rolled back to a previous version

Thoughts on DriverMax

Some driver update tools are very simple (in a bad way), making you crawl through a website to find a download link, and then force you to unzip the download yourself and then manually perform the install.

Others driver updater tools provide more advanced features like driver backups, automated installs, internal downloads, and System Restore options. Fortunately, we see some of these features with DriverMax as well.

Again, an obvious disadvantage with DriverMax is the limitation it sets on how many drivers you can download on a daily and monthly basis. Normally, however, you probably don't have too many devices that need updated at the same time, so spanning this across several days probably isn't really a huge concern for most people.

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