Users Guide

Getting drivers and downloads
A driver is a software that enables the operating system to communicate with the hardware components in your system.
Hardware components such as video cards, sound cards, and modems require drivers to work efficiently. Sometimes, the
operating system includes drivers for the system, but generally the drivers must be downloaded and installed separately.
A firmware is a software that is embedded on the system hardware. It is programmed to give instructions to communicate with
other hardware components and perform functions such as basic input/output tasks.
The system drivers and firmware should be updated for numerous reasons, some of which include improving system
performance, preventing security risks, and expanding compatibility. SupportAssist enables you to update the drivers and
firmware.
NOTE: In this document, the term drivers refers to both drivers and firmware.
As part of routine system monitoring, SupportAssist scans your system every 7 days to detect driver updates that are available
for your system. If an urgent update is available, a notification is displayed. For information on the types of notifications that are
displayed by SupportAssist, see Notifications.
Topics:
• Severity categorization of drivers
• Install driver updates
• Uninstall driver updates
• Notifications on Get Drivers and Downloads tile
Severity categorization of drivers
SupportAssist categorizes the drivers and firmware based on their severity. Depending on the severity, the drivers are
categorized as follows:
● Security—updates that can prevent potential security threats to your system.
● Urgent—updates that are necessary to ensure that the PCs are healthy.
● Recommended—updates that can significantly improve the performance of your system.
● Optional—updates that you can choose to install.
Install driver updates
Prerequisites
You must have administrator rights on the system.
About this task
SupportAssist scans your system and proactively suggests the driver updates that are required for your system. Before installing
an update, SupportAssist automatically creates a restore point. You can use the restore point to uninstall the update and restore
the system to its previous state. At a given time period, SupportAssist can retain only three restore points. When a new restore
point is created, the oldest restore point is removed.
NOTE: If you install a newer version of BIOS available for your system, you cannot uninstall the update.
NOTE: By default, the restore point creation setting is disabled in the Windows operating system. To enable SupportAssist
to create a restore point, you must enable the restore point creation option in Windows.
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