Is there any way to tell the difference between native Microsoft OS drivers from third-party?

S

Spin

Gurus,

Running Windows XP Pro SP3. Is there any way to tell the difference, by
looking in Device Manager, the difference between a native Microsoft
operating system plug and play driver and a driver from a third-party
vendor? This question goes beyond the obvious, where one may see Intel
under the network category or nVidia under the Video category. Major
vendors like that we obviously know to be third-party.
 
A

Andrew Murray

Go into device manager (from Control Panel) and right click a device, select
"Properties" then in the dialogue that opens, go to "Driver" and it will
(should) tell you who the provider is i.e. the manufacturer's name. E.g.
for my video card it shows the provider as "NVIDIA".

Otherwise it will show "Microsoft", in most cases, if its a generic
driver - say for a CD-ROM drive.
 

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