# My goodness!!! Did they have to make that driver THAT big?!?!



## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

A couple of weeks ago my computer crashed. I lost EVERY THING! So, I am trying to download my audio driver... it is 30mb!!!!!!! It is taking TOO long to download! I have it downloading with download manager...I started at 5:00pm and it is now 8:39pm and I'm only at 9%!!!!!!! Letting it set overnight, is NOT an option because my internet provider has some STUPID security feature, it shuts off every 90 minutes if there is no activity in IE. (how crazy!) What do I do? It is going SOOOOO slow!!!! (the download that is) And I know people are going to say "go with dsl or sattelite"..well that is NOT available in the woods! :flame:


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Leave IE Open to a page that has something that is always refreshing. like a picture or some other thing that keeps changing on a web page that will fool your ISP into thinking IE Is still on and functioning.


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

Thanks for te reply ak! I now have sound! How? I did a google search for my auido driver, while the 30mb one was downloading from my laptop's webiste, and found a driver that was made for windows 2k that ws only 1mb. I downloaded it and it works just fine! Now, my question is, why would they make the windows xp driver larger? :shrug:


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

It sounds (Pun Intended) like you were downloading more then just a driver that you needed. Like a whole program file of sounds. Like all those sounds you can have windows make, when signing off, signing on, and doing things like that. :shrug: from IK to 30K is a bunch of more things then just a sound driver IMO


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

If they insist on packaging inf with whole bunch of crap, still no way to avoid downloading whole thing, but maybe dont have to install whole thing. You could try opening the exe file with winzip, winrar, etc as per http://help.lockergnome.com/general/Extracting-Exe-Viewer-ftopict196.html then looking for the inf file and try just having windows use it when it asks for the driver. May or may not work. I hate being forced to install stuff I dont want just to get some little bit of it that I do want.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

arabian knight said:


> It sounds (Pun Intended) like you were downloading more then just a driver that you needed. Like a whole program file of sounds. Like all those sounds you can have windows make, when signing off, signing on, and doing things like that. :shrug: from IK to 30K is a bunch of more things then just a sound driver IMO


I think you're right that it probably was a whole lot more than just the driver, but most likely it was a sound control utility and application.


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

I don't know what the diffrence is....the drivers both look and work the same in the sound control pannel...


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Teresa S. said:


> I don't know what the diffrence is....the drivers both look and work the same in the sound control pannel...


Some sound drivers come with their own sound control panel.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

You should see printer drivers


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

what?! I don't even have a printer on my laptop if that is what your asking.


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## Guest (Feb 16, 2007)

Teresa S. said:


> A couple of weeks ago my computer crashed. I lost EVERY THING! So, I am trying to download my audio driver... it is 30mb!!!!!!! It is taking TOO long to download! I have it downloading with download manager...I started at 5:00pm and it is now 8:39pm and I'm only at 9%!!!!!!! Letting it set overnight, is NOT an option because my internet provider has some STUPID security feature, it shuts off every 90 minutes if there is no activity in IE. (how crazy!) What do I do? It is going SOOOOO slow!!!! (the download that is) And I know people are going to say "go with dsl or sattelite"..well that is NOT available in the woods! :flame:


 I don't know which download manager you're using, but I have Free Download Manager configured to dialup if the connection is dropped.

FYI burn those drivers to a cd. Makes it a breeze to reload them after a crash.


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

i too have free download manager


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## Guest (Feb 16, 2007)

Teresa S. said:


> i too have free download manager


 Ok, open Free Download Manager. Click tools ---> Dialup connection

You'll see the option to make it redial the connection if the connection is dropped.


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

Thanks LC~!


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## Karen (Apr 17, 2002)

Gary in ohio said:


> You should see printer drivers





Teresa S. said:


> what?! I don't even have a printer on my laptop if that is what your asking.


LOL! Gary was saying that if you think that sound driver was a hefty file, you should see what some printer drivers have! If a person had just a dialup connection and wanted to download some of those print drivers they would be there for days downloading the driver, fonts, control panel, printer maintenance software, etc....LOL.

The file you were trying to download apparently was not only the sound card driver, but also contained software for it's own control panel, sounds, additional configuration, etc. There are necessary (or at least very handy) if your a gamer, record/play music, videos, etc. Same with video drivers. They have specific controls/configuration abilities independent of your windows settings. Some even contain specific drop down menus for brand name games, etc. The smaller file you download was just the driver itself.


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## Teresa S. (Mar 2, 2006)

Wow~! thanks karen! I feel really dumb now! hahaha lol


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

HermitJohn said:


> If they insist on packaging inf with whole bunch of crap, still no way to avoid downloading whole thing, but maybe dont have to install whole thing. You could try opening the exe file with winzip, winrar, etc as per http://help.lockergnome.com/general/Extracting-Exe-Viewer-ftopict196.html then looking for the inf file and try just having windows use it when it asks for the driver. May or may not work. I hate being forced to install stuff I dont want just to get some little bit of it that I do want.


I had to reinstall XP to run a cd repair program. Sound driver not included in XP and I couldnt find the cd that came with the motherboard. So I download this 6mb driver from SIS and then just extract the inf, sys, and couple other tiny files (together something like 50*kb*), put them in a directory by themselves. Ditch the ? for the sound driver in systems and let XP rediscover the sound chip, then direct it to the directory with the two files in it. It installs them and sound works. 6mb download just to get 50kb of files. Worse I suspect many people would just install the whole bloated pkg with bunch unneeded crapola. Its fine to offer all the extra bs, but it shouldnt be packaged to appear like its necessary.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

Karen said:


> LOL! Gary was saying that if you think that sound driver was a hefty file, you should see what some printer drivers have! If a person had just a dialup connection and wanted to download some of those print drivers they would be there for days downloading the driver, fonts, control panel, printer maintenance software, etc....LOL.
> 
> The file you were trying to download apparently was not only the sound card driver, but also contained software for it's own control panel, sounds, additional configuration, etc. There are necessary (or at least very handy) if your a gamer, record/play music, videos, etc. Same with video drivers. They have specific controls/configuration abilities independent of your windows settings. Some even contain specific drop down menus for brand name games, etc. The smaller file you download was just the driver itself.


Yup, what she said. (I got a good laugh from that too. ) If you think 30Mb is big, download some video or printer drivers - the last printer (just an officejet from HP) I downloaded was *300 mb.*


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Kung said:


> Yup, what she said. (I got a good laugh from that too. ) If you think 30Mb is big, download some video or printer drivers - the last printer (just an officejet from HP) I downloaded was *300 mb.*


Why would anybody buy such a monstrosity? I would imagine basic printer functionality would exist with less than 2mb of software and it shouldnt even be that much. Again manufacturers should offer minimalist pkg to make printer or whatever work, and then offer the bloat for those that want all bells and whistles and own the latest mega-mega pc with the zillion gigabyte hardrive.

By way CUPS under linux supports most modern printers as long as they arent one of those nasty combo units that tries to have one machine do everything under the sun. And they do it far more efficiently than the manufacture's drivers you folks are mentioning. A 300mb driver is just product of a sadistic mindset. A whole operating system shouldnt be 300mb, let alone just one driver.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

The problem is the "Drivers" are not drivers anymore. They are the entire device engine, printers at one time were smart, sometime smarter than the computers connect to them. Now they are just simple devices and all the brains come from the host computer which is why printers are so cheap now a days. along with the "drivers" are programs of every sort, programs to use the device and what ever other crap the vendor threw in. They they have these checker programs that are install. When you low on paper they pop up a web site to order paper. Or worse yet the programs that have nothing to do with the device. WHY do I need to install a yahoo tool bar to get a digital camera to work.

ARGH..


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