The consequences of installing the wrong driver
Download Driver Update (3.0MB)
Free Download - Guaranteed safe for your PC.
As you already know, hardware drivers are a very important part of Windows (regardless of its version). If drivers are installed correctly and frequently updated, your hardware device will work at its full capacity. Windows will run smoothly and no errors should occur. However, things change when you install a wrong hardware driver. There were situations when Windows itself installed wrong drivers.
To make an idea regarding the gravity of the situation, take a look at some of the problems people experienced:
- “Every startup gets an error window: Cannot load the dll CnxtSdk.dll”
- “Windows installed a driver that it thought was right for my network card. Yet it isn’t right. It installed a 3com driver instead of a Realtek driver. Now, when I go to change the driver I choose to select it from a location. I choose the correct inf file, and Windows gives me an error.”
- “I accidentally installed a wrong VIA audio driver. Now the PC keeps restarting! I try to uninstall the drivers but, after reboot, Windows XP installs them again. Although I managed to install the correct driver, I receive errors caused by the wrong old VIA drivers.”
If you install the wrong driver, Windows will go crazy. It will start throwing lots of errors, reboot your system, and even fail to start. These are some very serious problems – you may need to reinstall Windows. This would be a time consuming task, and nobody would be happy to do it. But there are very few other alternatives.
You might be lucky and manage to uninstall the wrong hardware drivers and install the good ones. In this case, Windows should return to normal. However, there are cases in which errors continue to appear. You can try to talk to Microsoft – maybe they can help you. Send them an error report including the error code and error text. Although this may seem an easy way to solve the problem, don’t put too much hope in Microsoft. They receive thousands of error reports daily, so their response will be generic, copy pasted, or even automated. So this might not work at all.
If you have problems with wrong hardware drivers installed, you should be aware that it is entirely your fault. Although Windows can automatically install wrong drivers, it does it on very rare occasions. Here are a few advices to go through before attempting a hardware driver install:
- Always try to download the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s website
- Make sure the hardware drivers include your hardware device
- Make sure you don’t have wrong drivers already installed
- After installation, always reboot your computer
If you follow these advices, you shouldn’t encounter any problem with your hardware drivers. This will avoid numerous problems, errors, and even crashes. If you do encounter errors, contact your hardware’s manufacturer and tell them about the problem. Some drivers can be poorly written or have bugs.