Can I update Windows XP from disk?

Can you put a driver update scan for windows xp pro on a cd?

• My computer was messed up and everything you would open would come up as notepad and it would never open the right program. So my brother uninstalled windows vista and he erased everything, then he installed Windows XP Pro from the actual disk but for some reason it didn't install all the drivers and I can't put them on there because we lost the disk and there is no internet so I wanted to know if I could put a driver update scan on a cd then install it on the computer.

• Answer:

  What you need to do is find out what drivers are missing for what hardware of your computer. Most likely, you will have to lookup video and/or chipset drivers. According to the description of your question, you will definitely need to get the appropriate ethernet drivers so that you can at least use the internet on that machine. Although the following method will not always reveal to you the specific hardware that is missing, you can right click on My Computer, select Properties, and open the Hardware tab, click on Device Manager. Find all the things in the list that have an exclamation point; these are the items/hardware that need a driver. Usually Windows XP is capable enough to identify the name of the hardware, but sometimes it will not and you will end up with no clue as to what hardware an item in the list is specifically referring to. Once you find the name of the hardware devices, you will have to go to Google (http://www.google.com/) and look up a driver download for each device from another computer that has internet access. You need to download all your drivers, put them on a flash drive, CD/DVD, floppy drive, or external harddrive, and then transfer them over to your computer that needs its drivers. Then you need to install the drivers. If I knew more about the specific hardware used to makeup your machine, I would be able to help you more.