Driver

All hardware that is connected to a personal computer requires a driver to control the communications between it and the computer. By using drivers software can communicate with different types of hardware using a generic interface, and the complexities of the hardware can be managed by the driver.

Some hardware has a driver built into the computers BIOS, for example hard drives. The support provided by the BIOS usually only extends to the most basic interface and hardware support.

Other hardware may be supported with drivers supplied with the operating system. For example Microsoft Windows supports many devices natively.

If a device is not supported directly by the operating system, then it is usually possible to get a driver from the manufacturer.