Why do I need to restart the computer after installing drivers?

Question

The question is similar to this one except it's for drivers.

Why do I need to restart the computer after installing new drivers? For example, if I did a fresh install of Windows 7, installed audio drivers on it, the sound works fine without restarting yet the installer still asks for a restart.

I'm assuming it's a similar reasoning as "because users are stupid", but I'd like to hear a technical reason for this.

Solution

The simplest technical reason is because "they're in use".

If you create a picture file in paint, save it, but don't close paint and try to delete the file. Explorer will say it can't because its in use.

This is basis for the restart, its only when booting that Windows can guarantee not one program was using the drivers files.

In later versions of Windows they built well defined wrapper layers (or boundaries) around certain areas (like display). The layer talks to the underlying driver, but it also is the only program that could ever use that driver, so its a simpler case to 'disconnect' the driver and replace it.

I think in Linux and OSX this layered approach is more fundamental in the design and so they rarely if ever need reboots.

Comments

[denis12345]

I would like to share this link with you to an answer from 2010 on this website - superuser.com/a/171819/196131 I never make a point of restarting after a driver update if I am actively using my machine, only after a system update (for security reasons) and all works out just fine.