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In the course of playing around with my computer and attempting to pinpoint a nagging glitch I posted a thread and got the kind help of Gandalf and Pancake.

In the post exchange the subject of updated drivers and utilities that help with that came up.

Once I confirmed that I had no malware I ran one of the utilities I already owned and then purchased one of the other ones running it as well.

Now I admit I'm no genius when it comes to using them but I'd like to think I have enough smarts to not take everything at face value.

Good thing I didn't because after running those programs one informed me that I had 8 out of date drivers and the other one said 12.

I was immediately suspicious since I'm pretty good about regularly checking for updates and visit the manufacturers sites to do so.

I began to look closer and it didn't take long to catch on that all those red X's I saw were in fact false positives.

Not only that but for a few of them the suggested file for downloading was not even for the same piece of hardware.

This leads me to believe that these utilities are very dangerous in the wrong hands especially newbies yet it sure seems to me that it's precisely those that they attempt to entice with implications of ease and smooth computing.

Frankly I'm not impressed.

I see possible potential in the concept but they sure as heck need to fine tune it to attain reliability.

Thought I'd share my two cents.

It is certainly not a good idea to let a piece of software choose the appropriate drivers for your computer. There is a reason that these pieces of software are not recommended - and that is because they are very inaccurate.

Except of course Windows itself and Windows update, and similar

I generally only touch drivers if there is a problem with something, or if I notice new features in later versions. If it ain't borked don't fix it etc...

I wouldn't recommend either of those.

I only use a driver scanner occassionaly as they usaly are slightly inacurate.

As for Microsoft update for drivers?
I never download there GPU drivers they always crash my computer I always download from NVIDIA.

Both of the above have problems and are slightly inacurate.

My advice is to use http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

I usaly check on manufacturers websites for my hardware drivers or brand named computers websites for drivers.Google is wonderfull.

Very true, I'll take compromising time over compromising my computer anyday.

I agree Chris I would rather manualy search than to mess up my system.