How to Install Any Piece of Hardware Without the Install Disk or CD

As you probably know if you are reading this article, computers don't automatically know what to do with hardware that is plugged into them. In order to make it work, they need small pieces of software called "drivers" to tell them exactly what to do with their newfound appendage. This is all well and good if your new, say, printer came with a CD containing a driver, but what if you come across some piece of hardware for which you have no driver? What then?

Fortunately, plug and play technology is much better than it used to be. Plug and Play, as its name suggests, is the ability for a computer to be plugged into something and immediately know what to do with it. It works because, rather than loading the driver yourself, your computer is already equipped with the appropriate driver. When it detects a new piece of hardware hooked up to it, all it needs to do is to look in its database, call up the appropriate driver, and put it to use. Easy! You didn't have to do anything.

If you are reading this article, however, odds are that Plug and Play didn't do the trick. Don't despair. You should still be able to make it work. If plugging the device in doesn't immediately call up an "install device" window, go into the control panel and pull up the "Add New Hardware" window. Your computer will automatically search for new things that are connected to it. Providing that the device in question is properly connected, plugged in, and turned on, it should come up with it, and take you to the "install driver" window.

Windows, at least in its more recent incarnations, includes a wizard that can automatically find a driver for a device that is not in its Plug and Play archive. Just make sure you're online, and push the button to "Let Windows Search for a Driver." If it finds something, it will install automatically. If not, you will have to do it yourself.

Find the name of the device you're trying to install, and its model number if possible. Punch that into Google along with the word "driver". It is likely that something will come up. (Another site to search is www.driverguide.com, a website that, while having a really annoying registration process, has a relatively complete archive of drivers.) When you have found the appropriate driver, download it.

At this point, you will have the file. All you need to do now is install it. If the file you downloaded is an application, this will be an easy matter. Just run it, and it should be able to do everything itself. Restart the computer, and everything should be fine. If, however, it is an archive of some sort, create a folder for it and unzip it. Go back to the "Add New Hardware" wizard, and select the "Manual Install" option. It will give you a dialog box to let you enter the exact location of the file yourself. Hit the "Browse..." button, go to the folder you just created, and look for the file with the ".ini" extension. (in some cases it will have a different extention, but it should be pretty obvious.) Push next, and you should be done. Restart your machine, and your computer should work.

If not, pick up the phone and call your friend the tech nerd.