Buggy drivers are a major cause of crashes, performance issues and many other PC problems, so it's a very good idea to keep yours up-to-date. You could do this manually, but who has the time to browse endless hardware websites, looking for upgrades? Fortunately that really isn't necessary, because Driver Magician will quickly do all the hard work for you.

When you first launch the program it will scan your PC, checking for installed drivers. Once the process is finished, click Update and it'll compare your driver versions with an online database, then let you know which ones have updates available.

In theory you can then just click a Download button to grab whatever might be available. In practice, though, the trial version will only show you updates: you can't download them until you've purchased a program licence.

Driver Magician does have another function that could prove very useful, though - it's able to back up your drivers to a folder, ZIP or self-extracting EXE file. This could be a life-saver if your system crashes and you need to reinstall Windows, as you won't have to spend forever looking for driver discs or downloading upgrades. Just point the operating system at your backup folder and your drivers will be installed within minutes.