Driver Genius Professional 23 Review

Full review

While all driver-focused utilities perform similar tasks, not all of them perform these tasks equally. Driver Genius, a utility devoted completely to updating out-of-date drivers, supports more than 30,000 device drivers. Because of its impressive level of driver support, we were extremely eager to scan and update our system's drivers with Driver Genius Professional.

Setup

Installing Driver Genius is very easy, and it supports Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. On our test system, which runs Windows 10, it installed in less than 2 minutes, and we were only required to click through a few windows during the installation process. Once the installation was complete, a window popped up and informed us that Driver Genius was ready to perform its first scan.

Scan performance

While scanning for out-of-date drivers, Driver Genius provided us with constant status updates at the top of the window. On our test system, the scan took only a few minutes to complete, and Driver Genius managed to find 21 out-of-date drivers on our system. When we selected one of the many out-of-date drivers that it detected, Driver Genius displayed a lot of useful information, including its release date, its version, and more.

Once we had spent some time looking through some of the driver information collected by Driver Genius, we were ready to start updating our system's drivers. First, we unchecked the box next to one out-of-date driver to prevent Driver Genius from updating it. Then, once we were ready, we clicked a single button and the driver-update process was underway. After several minutes, we had 20 up-to-date drivers freshly installed on our system without any issues whatsoever.

Driver database

Driver Genius accesses driver-related information from a database that contains support for over 30,000 device drivers. Because of its size, this database should keep modern systems' drivers updated easily. For our purposes, this database was certainly more than adequate.

Security

Driver Genius has a lot of useful features that contribute to system stability and security. Firstly, it offers fully functional backup and restore features that can be used in the event that updated drivers cause issues. These features can also be used to save time when reinstalling Windows, effectively eliminating the process of manually downloading and installing hardware drivers.

Driver Genius also provides users with the ability to scan driver files for malware with the anti-virus software of their choosing. We configured this feature to scan our driver backups for malware with AVG, which it managed to do without any issues.

Features

Driver uninstall – Sometimes, when hardware is changed or drivers are updated, unneeded drivers are left behind. This feature is designed to locate these leftover drivers and uninstall them quickly.

Scheduler – Driver Genius provides users with the option of running driver-update scans on a schedule. This schedule is highly customizable, and it should take no longer than a minute for most users to configure.

Ease of use

Driver Genius is very easy to use, and most users should be able to jump right into it. The software's home screen displays plenty of pertinent information, such as scan history and the number of out-of-date drivers currently present. With the click of a single button on the home screen, users are even able to run a complete driver scan. Also, since everything in Driver Genius is clearly labeled, even PC novices should be able to navigate through its interface without issues. In fact, novices will probably even feel relatively comfortable configuring several aspects of Driver Genius' operation manually.

Help & support

Driver Soft does offer various forms of support for Driver Genius. On their website, there is an FAQ, a detailed user guide, and a link to e-mail Driver Soft's support staff. At this time, unfortunately, they do not offer technical support via telephone.

Overall

Featuring an easy-to-use interface, a database with support for more than 30,000 drivers, and a quick driver-update process, Driver Genius is certainly one of the best driver utilities currently available. Its extra features keep drivers safe, free from viruses, and easily accessible. While we would like to see telephone-based support available, Driver Soft does offer other support options. Overall, Driver Genius Professional is an exceptional piece of utility software that we highly recommend to all PC users, even novices.