Before or After?

This has been a thought of mine for awhile now. When installing drivers for our video cards, sound cards, modems, etc. Which is the best way to do this? Should driver installation be done before we connect/install the cards or modems to the computer or after connecting/installing them?

Well I would say afterwards in the vast majority of cases. After all, if you do a clean install of Windows you don't want to have to take your cards out first, install the drivers and put the cards back in. That would defeat the object of plug and play somewhat. :D

There are some USB devices that specifically tell you to install the driver first, though.

I think my reasonings were that if you or I install the software first, (like in usb) then windows should find the drivers on its own. That is if you don't have old cards in your computer to start with, then installing software first might confuse windows (And it's confused enough already. :D )

Usually windows will try to find the drivers on its own. In many cases, you want to help it along by inserting the CD at that point. Often this installs only the drivers and not the software that clutters your start menu and system tray.

Some hardware doesn't like that.... but usually it doesn't hurt to experiment. I totally reccomend installing anything from creative labs that way.

Go with the install instructions for the hardware, especially with Windows Xp. I have got into a number of 'harf-installs' simply by not following the instructions the manufacturer recommends (and hopefully they have thouroughly tested the installation many times).

Definitely learned the hard way that one should follow the instructions - dealt with too many "harf-installs" and subsequent reformats to think differently. Think it depends on how the software/drivers are programmed - sometimes you can pre-install drivers only, but many times driver install included w/full software install so the hardware must already be present in system.

I follow along w/patweb, XP can oftentimes be too intrusive and automatically install drivers - then cause a fuss if you try to manually install manufacturer's drivers (and I thought the headaches from Win 98 were over).

Thanks for all the replies. I asked only as a curiousity thing.

I install as directions suggest. Unlike a lot of people, I read the manual first, at least with computers anyway. :D