Reading a driver's date

Where the date comes from

The date shown is the one written into the package's information file by its publisher. It is not the day the driver was installed on your computer, and it is not necessarily the day the code was compiled. Publishers set it as part of their release process.

Some packages that ship inside Windows intentionally carry an old, fixed date. Windows uses the date as a tie-breaker when ranking otherwise equal packages, and an early date keeps a generic built-in package from outranking a maker's specific one. A driver dated many years ago may therefore be current and perfectly appropriate.

Steps

This is purely a look. No restart, update or change is required.

1. 01
   Open Device Manager and expand the device's category.
2. 02
   Right-click the device and choose Properties.
3. 03
   Open the Driver tab and read the Driver Date line.
4. 04
   Read the Driver Provider and Driver Version on the same tab for context.
5. 05
   Close the window with Cancel.

How to interpret it

Read the date together with the provider. A generic Microsoft-provided driver with an old date is often a built-in class driver doing exactly what it was designed for. A maker-provided package with an old date may simply be the final release for an older product.

If you want to know whether anything more recent exists, the reliable place is the device maker's reference site or Windows Update. Age alone is not evidence that something is wrong, and replacing a working driver purely because of its date can introduce problems rather than solve them.

Good to know

Dates are shown in the regional format your computer uses, so a day and month may appear in a different order from what an information page shows. When comparing, write the date out with the month name to avoid reading it backwards. Keep the date alongside the version in any note you make.