Drivers - GCSE Computing

A driver is another essential piece of systems software.

The operating system acts as a link between the hardware and software enabling both to communicate and do their tasks.

A driver is a specially written program which translates the commands from the operating system into commands that the hardware will understand.

Each piece of hardware e.g. printer, monitor, scanner, keyboard etc. will have its own driver. Printers from different manufacturers work in different ways, so a printer from manufacturer A will need a different driver than manufacturer B.

If you try to use a device without the correct driver, then it will probably won't work. If you do manage…