This may seem a stupid question, but I want to know whether I can place my entire trust in the Windows 7 Automatic Upate Process to keep my drivers anmd codecs updated and, if I can't when and why can't I and what else should I do?Help and Support makes the following ststement under Drivers: "You can have Windows automatically download recommended drivers and detailed information for your hardware and devices. This is a good way to make sure all your hardware and devices work" I've got two computers new i7 computers with no unusual features or uncommon harware installed and I'm trusting Auto Update to do what it promises.However, in all forums, in just about every case where people report problems, the question is asked about drivers being current. Does this imply that Auto Update can't be relied on or does it just mean that a lot of people voluntarily decide not to allow Auto Update to update drivers automatically? If it's just the latter, fine, because I can understand that, for example, if you're responsible for a large network of computers, all with varying ages and features, the last thing you would need would be wholescale updating processes going on without your full knowledge. If I use Device Manager to check for a driver update, does it do anything different to Auto Update? If Device Manager reports all up to date, is this completely reliable or are there cases when I should go to hardware manufacturer websites and double-check? What if there is conflicting advice?I realize that this is a huge problem, probably unanswerable, but I see so many references to people talking about the need for complete OS reloads, the need for clean installs, the use of Windows drivers Vs proprietary drivers, etc, that I would reaslly appreciate some wise guidance, at least an outline of a relatively safe approach.CODECS: Lastly, but by no means least, are Codecs really just a specific form of driver and are these updated and maintained as well, or is a different procedure needed to look after them? I'm sorry if this is all elementary to a lot of forum users, but I'm sure I'm no orphan in seeking further knowledge on the subject. Help and Support gives some general information but it's not really complete.(E.G. How do you recognize a driver file? What suffixes do they have? How to identify a codec. Where do you find them and where hould they be put?)

HiThere are a lot of misconceptions about how Windows Update works.Microsoft cannot and does not build or develop drivers for third party hardware manufacturers products. Doing so would violate that hardware manufacturers copyright and patents for those devices. All of the drivers that you get from Windows Update or on the Windows installation discs come directly from the hardware manufacturers. Microsoft does maintain a huge division, MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) to assist manufacturers in developing these drivers and hardware products.These drivers are placed on the installation discs and Windows Update as a service for hardware manufacturers to help distribute their proprietary drivers for Windows compatible products. As part of this service, Microsoft does perform testing with the submitted drivers, on a variety of systems, before they are placed on Windows Update. These drivers will normally appear on the hardware device manufacturers websites before they appear on Windows Update. This is especially true for newly developed, cutting edge hardware devices or Beta drivers. The timeline for submitting the drivers for inclusion on Windows Update is completely up to the manufacturer.When Windows Update reports that the latest, recommended drivers are installed, this means that the latest available drivers on Windows Update are installed.Most problems with hardware drivers are conflicts with other hardware devices or software that operates at a low level, such as antivirus/security products. There are literally several hundred thousand possible hardware/software combinations, worlwide. Trying to test particular drivers for every one of these possible combinations would be impossible.The bottom line is that, on the vast majority of computers, the drivers from Windows Update will work without any problems. Windows Update selects the drivers for a particular device from the database based on the Hardware ID for the device which is published by the device manufacturer in the firmware component. You can see the Hardware ID by right clicking the device in Device manager and selecting Properties/Details Tab. In the Property section, click the drop down menu and select Hardware IDs. In the Value section you will see the ID information. It will look similar to this:PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E45&SUBSYS_30021002&REV_00The important items are the bold VEN number (Vendor Name) and DEV number (Device Name).You can translate the numbers using the following website.PCI Vendor and Device Lists Search Codecs are a different animal. There are tons of different media formats and, as far as I know, Microsoft only distributes the codecs for their own media formats that are supported on their own media players. Here are some links that may be helpful. For end users: Windows Update Forum Windows 7 features - Windows Update Updating your computer Install Windows updates Understanding Windows automatic updatingFor ITPro: Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Home WSUS Product Team BlogHope this helps. Thank You for using Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP

Many thanks for your very informative reply.Tarfon