a program that allows a hardware peripheral, such as a printer, to communicate with a computer. DOS applications usually have their own proprietary device drivers; under windows all applications use the device drivers included with Windows or provided by the hardware manufacturer for installation in Windows.
a program that extends the operating system in order to support a specific device, such as a disk or tape drive, video card, or printer.Device drivers are a very important part of Microsoft Windows. They insulate application programs from the hardware so that, for example, the manufacturer of a word processing program does not have to know what kind of printer you are going to be using, and if a new printer is invented in the future, you can use it even if it wasn't anticipated when the programwas written. Installation of device drivers usually happens automatically when hardware or software is installed; you can also add and remove device drivers from the Control Panel (see Control Panel; Plug and Play).
