Snappy Driver Installer

Pros

• Very simple user interface
• Doesn't create any folders
• Portable application that doesn't need to be installed
• Won't make unneeded registry changes

Cons

• Can damage existing drivers if used incorrectly
• May not work in some edge cases

Snappy Driver Installer is a portable application that identifies missing drivers and downloads them automatically. Since it offers users an extremely simple interface, even those who might never have updated a driver shouldn't find it hard to use. Most of the work is done without any need for user intervention, which makes the app suitable for gamers and creative professionals who want to get their hardware working as fast as possible.

Once the Snappy software finds a new driver, it can make a system restore point so you can rollback the changes later on. In most cases, you'll never have to worry about ill effects since the software is only working with official patches. This feature is extremely useful in the rare situation where something does go wrong, however. Though you could theoretically cause damage to an existing driver by using the software incorrectly, the fact that it creates these restore points makes it relatively simple to recover from any problem you might run into.

Advanced users can enable an expert mode, which gives them a number of settings related to the visibility of certain items. Whenever you run Snappy Driver Installer in this mode, you'll be free to display drivers that are newer or older than the currently installed version. Express mode only checks for newer drivers and updates them. There's also an option to show duplicate or invalid drivers, which might be useful for situations where multiple servers list a single driver.

Other than updating driver information, the Snappy Driver Installer doesn't really make any lasting changes to any Windows registry hives. Computer professionals who have to update a huge number of machines won't have to uninstall the application. Simply delete the executable file when you're done and move onto the next one. Due to the fact that it's contained in a single executable you could even put it on USB thumb drives to move between different devices.

Technicians will appreciate the ability to get in-depth data regarding each library that the Snappy Driver Installer finds. Simply hover the mouse pointer over any of the driver packs show up in the app's main window and you'll get information about the currently installed one as well as any that are available for download.

Tooltips will show you the name of the uploader offering the driver, its version and release date as well as the identification number assigned to it. An option to view the signature information associated with any driver should prove especially helpful considering that it's never safe to install unsigned code on a Windows machine.

While most users won't need the advanced features and logging options that Snappy Driver Installer offers, it's nice to have instant access to them.

Pros

• Very simple user interface
• Doesn't create any folders
• Portable application that doesn't need to be installed
• Won't make unneeded registry changes

Cons

• Can damage existing drivers if used incorrectly
• May not work in some edge cases