Bradley Chapple, IT Consultant & Owner of Aspen Computer Services, Loveland Colorado

If you’re keen to the process of updating drivers, you may have wondered… is there some way I can just easily update my drivers without scavenging the web for all of the latest updates?

Personally, I have 5 different websites to visit about every other month.  I know some of my friends have even more hardware vendors to visit when they are updating their systems.

Maybe you already know where to download the drivers or updates, but hate having to spend the better part of 2 hours every month to keep them up to date.

So do I.

Unfortunately, you can only count on Windows Update for the basics.  It is very limited in scope.

For most drivers, you have to go to the manufacturer’s website and navigate a strange and unfamiliar page.  Sometimes you can only find the drivers by going the site map (if you can find that page).

Finding driver updates on a regular basis is a pain.  So much so that most people just not doing it, and it ends up leading to security issues, slowness, and general system instability.

Then there is the dreaded “Unknown Device” in the device manager… you know the one with the yellow exclamation mark.  How can you find a driver when you don’t even know what to look for?  If that wasn’t enough, throw in a few helpings of a very generic “Base System Device” and a “High Definition Audio Bus” and you have a big ole bubbling pot of unknown driver soup.

WHEN GOOD COMPANIES GET GREEDY

We used to have a paid (monthly) subscription to driveragent.com, but since they started limiting the updates to 10 computers, we no longer use them.

If you ask me, charging a monthly fee and limiting it to 10 computers was a BAD move for driveragent.com.  I’m only one of the MANY clients that’s ditching driveragent.com for friendlier alternatives.  Personally, I fought with paying that $15 every month, feeling that it was bit too steep for the frequency that I used it, but it was a nice thing to keep in my bag of tricks.

But, driveragent.com, like many companies got greedy and now it’s costing them clients.

So began our mighty and noble quest for an alternative to driveragent.com.

We have gone through a few products so far.  A few of them are free.  Some of them have a free version that is very limited in what it can do.  Some of the products we looked at are completely paid.

While looking for a alternative to driveragent.com, we stumbled upon DriverMax from http://www.innovative-sol.com.

When I found DriverMax, I thought, “Now here is a product that looks promising.”  Supposedly, the premise is that you can download drivers and driver updates for your system… and in return, it will make a list of the drivers in your computer and upload them to the web.

A SITE ONLY OSCAR WOULD LOVE

The feeling that I got from the DriverMax Website is that everyone there is overworked and very grumpy.

Their “Help” page was much more defensive than helpful… with lots of “this is not our fault!” and “there is nothing we can do!”… and my favorite, “The problem is on your computer, please don’t contact us about it.”

One of the topics on the help page was about getting a refund from DriverMax.  It states that “DriverMax is a FREE program and was always a FREE program.”  It goes on and on about people who buy a product and then mistake it for DriverMax.  But, what about the PRO version they are selling on http://www.drivermax.com/upgrade.htm?  That product doesn’t seem to be free.  It has the same name, but it’s not free.  Hmmm…

When I downloaded the program I was pleasantly surprised.  For a free program, it looked very polished and nice.  I kept reminding myself of the dangers of judging a book by it’s cover.

AND WE’RE OFF!!!  (TO A ROCKY START)

When I ran DriverMax for the first time, it wanted me to register.

So, I input my desired username, password, e-mail address, etc.

Then, it said that I needed to validate the e-mail address by clicking on the link that I was sent.

I waited… and waited… and waited.  I gave them a good 5 or 6 hours to send me the validation link.  With today’s technology, this process should be instantaneous.  There is a topic on the help page that discusses this problem, and once again they say, “This is not our fault! Please don’t complain to us – instead, complain to your e-mail service provider…”

Well… what if I AM my own e-mail service provider and my Exchange Server is sitting right next to me, and I’ve never had a problem sending or receiving e-mail?  Just for giggles, I checked my spam filter… and then checked it again.  Still nothing.  What now?  Personally, I think that something in their own auto-responder system is messed up, and they either don’t see it, don’t want to fix it, don’t have time to fix it, or all of the above.

Filling out another request was not very intuitive and I had to find the option under DriverMax settings… but, I did that, and then used a different e-mail address (my hotmail account) and that one actually went through.  Weird.

It unfortunately doesn’t get much better.

Although the interface is nice-looking, it’s not very intuitive.  There are options such as “Start the DriverMax Agent”, without much clarification about what that is.

Once we did that, we scanned for updated drivers and tried to download one of them.  We were brought to a DriverMax page and asked if we wanted to continue as a Free DriverMax user, or continue as a DriverMax PRO user.

We obviously chose the Free option, since we hadn’t paid for anything.

Then we were prompted to wait… 30 seconds, actually.

After our 30 seconds were up, we got the beige box at the top of our browser that stated, “To help protect your security, Internet Explorer blocked this site from downloading files to your computer.  Click here for options…”  Typical.  So, we clicked the bar and selected “Download File…” only to be hit with another 30 second countdown!

Remember back in grade school when someone else would get you into trouble, and then YOU were the one that had to stand in the corner, even though you didn’t do anything wrong?  Yep, it sort of feels like that.  This is a typical ploy to sell the PRO version of their software.  It feels more like you are being punished than anything else.  Even if the software is free, this is crossing the line a bit.

If that isn’t enough to get your blood pumping, then this will:  They only allow you to download 2 drivers per day with the free version… something that isn’t very obvious before you actually download and use the product.

THE DRIVER INSTALLATIONS

I went on to download the updates and even tried it out on a couple of  “unknown devices”.  But, it was A LOT OF WORK!  It would have been easier to just go the DELL web site and look for the drivers one by one.   I am looking for a product that will make my life and the life of my clients easier… not more complicated.

The drivers worked very well… but, then again, Innovative Solutions didn’t write the drivers, so they should work.

THE CONCLUSION

The time-wasting 30 second delay was a pathetic attempt to frustrate a user enough to buy the PRO version, and it was the straw the broke MY back with this product.

A better option would have been a 15 day trial, or the ability to download 1 or 2 drivers, but VERY EASILY… thereby selling the ease of use of the product.

Example:  The client download the program, clicks one button and it tells you the drivers that need updates, identifies the “unknown drivers” and then asks you to select just 1 driver to update.  The client selects one driver, and clicks the Download, Install and Reboot button (all just one button).  It does all this, and brings you back to the window.  Then, the window says, “See how easy that was?  You could do this with ALL your drivers if you just register this product for $29.95.”

Wouldn’t THAT sell more product?

So, combined with the non-intuitive nature of this produce, the 30 second to 1 minute delay, and the horribly unfriendly copy on the website, I could never recommend this product.  The only exception is that you are desperate, smart, have a lot of extra time on your hands… oh, and flat broke.

I have heard some okay things about the DriverMax PRO product… so I may try that at some point.  But, unfortunately, I need to get the bad taste out my mouth first.

In the future, we’ll be posting reviews of some other products, such as Driver Genius, RadarSync and a few others.  So far, these are working better than DriverMax, but unfortunately they are aren’t free.  So, it seems that you really do get what you pay for, after all.

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