What Is a ‘Driver’

Most people don’t really understand a lot of computer jargon, and the word ‘driver’ is no exception. It could be as a result you’ve done web searches for things like: “ what driver”, or something like that and looked for simple answers.

As always, I’m not criticizing you– if you’ve always been baffled by this term, it’s only because it was never explained to you in a simple way before.

Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense by the end of this article.

I have a simple way to explain it that will just make sense for you. By the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll understand this piece of computer terminology better than most people do.

Firstly, just to make sure we all we’re all on the same page, allow me to take a moment to clarify the difference between “hardware” and “software”.

It’s really easy to grasp –”hardware” refers to all of the tangible pieces of equipment, like your mouse, your monitor, the hard drive, and so on.

“Software” would be all of the pieces of the computer that you really can’t see or touch directly. Software would include things like a word processor, your email program, Windows or the Mac OS, as well as all of your own files like letters, photos, songs, and more.

Here’s how you can think about it: hardware is like your brain, a physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts — the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts “run on” your brain.

Understand? Now let’s talk more specifically about drivers.

Here’s the easy way to understand what a driver is. It’s almost like every piece of hardware, including your printer, your mouse, and so on, talks a different language.

So one speaks Spanish, another one speaks Italian, another one Korean, etc.

So when you plug in a new printer and start it up, your computer says hello and the printer answers in a foreign language the computer can’t make sense of.

So it needs an interpreter.

And when I say interpreter, I mean just like in the real world, just like when a foreign diplomat arrives in the country but doesn’t know the local language. The diplomat needs an interpreter to help them communicate with the locals.

That, basically speaking, is what a driver is — an interpreter that helps your computer talk to a specific piece of equipment. And ( most of the time) you need a different interpreter for each piece of equipment that you attach the computer.

Understand?

Now fairly often, the driver may be “preinstalled” on your computer (in other words, the computer already has the interpreter ready and waiting in case it’s needed) and in other cases, it needs to either be installed from a CD, or gotten from the Internet, and then installed on the computer.

But in any case, the computer needs that driver before it can communicate with the printer or whatever other thing you may have connected to the computer.

I hope you now understand what a driver is.