Protect yourself from problems associated with new drivers.

One of XP's new features is the Device Driver Rollback. With this feature you finally have the option to quickly go back to a previous version of a device driver if the updated driver causes problems. As Chris is going to demonstrate on today's "Call for Help," when you update a driver the old one will be saved to a special directory in Windows.

You won't have the option to roll back a driver if you've never updated it. Since every device has the ability to roll back its driver, you're going to need to access your Device Manager to do this.

Here's how to access the Driver Rollback feature for a particular device inside the Device Manager:

  1. Left-click the Start menu and then select Control Panel.
  2. Double-click the Performance and Maintenance icon.
  3. Double-click the System icon.
  4. Click the Hardware tab.
  5. Click the Device Manager button to open the Device Manager.
  6. Expand the device menu you'd like to roll back.
  7. Locate the device you'd like to roll back and double-click it to bring up its properties.
  8. When you launch the properties for a particular device, click on the Driver tab.
  9. Click the button labeled "Roll Back Driver" to complete the process.