Installing Windows and finding a network driver that hasn’t been detected and installed can be frustrating. And if you have no internet connection you can’t install other drivers from Windows Update, use any driver scanning software to download drivers automatically, and you can’t download drivers from a manufacturer’s website. If you have no wired or wireless network driver installed, you have no internet connection. There is a driver though which is one of the most important of all, and that is the network adapter driver.
After a visit to Windows Update, there will probably be one or two drivers at the most which need to be downloaded from a third party. Nowadays, Windows 10 can usually install the majority of the most important drivers on a system without having to connect to the internet first. The number of drivers available on the Windows install disk improved greatly with Windows Vista and 7. Windows XP didn’t have great driver support from the CD although it did a fair job for the time. Installing compatible drivers for many components in a system without having to go online is mostly automatic.
One thing that Windows has got better at over the years is offering more driver support out of the box.
