Updating Drivers

For drivers, check "Windows Update" in the computer settings. Also check the manufacturer's website for your computer in the support area for driver, firmware, or bios updates.

I'll check Norton for Norton security updates, NOT outdated drivers.

Microsoft and the company that made your computer are more likely to know if you need driver updates than Norton.

I use Norton and generally I’m opposed to letting Norton handle O/S updates. I prefer to use the “native” update process that is built into Windows.

That being said I updated everything yesterday and then checked Garmin Express which had normal behavior. I also have a portable Canon printer from about 1995 and it too worked fine. It uses a very specific Canon driver.

Norton has been spyware itself for many years now. I would avoid it....

It's not a good idea to follow any advice to update drivers given by third party apps. Reason being the drivers sometimes are customized for the device they are used on, and the versions the app in question wishes to download are generic. Case in point, I have a Dell Inspiron 15 running Windows 11 that cannot use the Windows 11 keyboard driver: it has to use the Windows 10 driver Dell customized. If the driver is updated the keyboard will not be recognized on first boot, requiring a reboot before the keyboard will function.

There are obvious exceptions, such as GPU drivers for NVidia or AMD, but their control centers will let you know when an update is available. You don't need a third party app for that. But in general, do not update your drivers.

A very long time ago Norton was touted as the next best thing and it was very popular. Eventually it started acting up and I tried to do a reinstall but the same errors would start immediately again. Removing all traces of it was nearly impossible, so getting a clean reinstall just couldn't be accomplished, not easily anyway. I've avoided it ever since.

The only way to clear it off now and day is a full windows reinstall. Even then you have to get a clean ISO not the one that came with your pc. Most of the time it come pre-installed

I also disliked Norton and switched to Trend Micro some years ago. They've generally been fine, but last year there was some confusion about renewing my license, which I did correctly and it worked fine and showed my subscription as active on their site, but they sent me an e-mail saying I hadn't renewed. We straightened that out and I forgot all about it.

Well, last night when it was time to automatically renew, my credit card refused the charge and sent me an alert saying it was "suspicious activity". They are sometimes overly cautious about that, which can be annoying, but "better safe than sorry". It only took a few clicks to confirm that it was a valid charge, try again and it went through fine. Then today, I got another automated e-mail from Trend saying my subscription had expired. Went to their site again, and confirmed it had actually been renewed.

I know they had a data leak back in 2019 (IIRC) where an employee sold their user info (or part of it) to some bad guys, so maybe that's why the credit card company was suspicious? BUt I really wonder what's up with Trend? It's like they intentionally make it hard to login to their website and they also make it look like a scam. The automated warning e-mail I got had a button to get help on their site. Clicked on that and it took me to a site with an expired security cert. That made me think it was a scam, so I manually went to the site. And on their own site, you also get a warning about the bad SSL cert when you click the help button. As far as I can tell, it's the "real" trend site, it has all my info and uses 2FA. No expired certificat on the main site, just the help button.

Seriously - a security company that doesn't even keep its own site secure? Am gonna have to think about whether I want to continue with them next year. Not real worried about Windows security though, I only use Windows in a virtual machine on my Mac, and really only use two Windows apps, just for making maps. I don't ever use e-mail or browse the web on Windows, I do all that on the Mac. Still, I wouldn't want to use Windows in any fashion without some kind of malware protection.

I don't update anything unless what I have ceases to work.

… isn’t well reviewed by many sources. See https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/trend-micro-internet-security

Most tech people I follow recommend not using ANY third-party antivirus. The built-in tool Microsoft provides is more than sufficient.

A clean install of Windows gets rid of all the bloat manufacturers add, like third party antivirus tools.

norton checks version numbers
norton does not check appropriate
turn off that 'feature'

Running Win 10
Blocked all updates years ago. Only updating what stops working, which was only the BT adapter.