Does Alienware update their drivers?

On my Alienware 18 support page, all the drivers like MEI, Audio, VGA, etc. are all outdated....the only one which got an update were the nVIDIA drivers to v9.18.13.3244

but the rest seem to be eating the dust.

Does Alienware not bother to update drivers periodically like other laptop manufacturers do?

 

I haven't seen example of other laptop manufacturers updating drivers unless their previous driver was buggy and needed to have something fixed. In short, they don't need to. Since Alienware machines are not particularly proprietary (one of the reasons they are desirable) there is no reason for them to bother because reference drivers generally work perfectly.

They provide a driver that has been tested and confirmed to be the best option at the time of testing and make it available for download. Beyond that point, unless there needs to be a bug fix, driver support is typically left to the device manufacturer (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, Broadcom, RealTek, Synaptic, etc.) and for any OEM (Dell, HP, Acer, Clevo or others) attempting to keep up is a futile waste of time and resources. It is also a waste of server space to re-host drivers the ODM has available for download on their support page. Driver management does not need to be an "all hands on desk" affair.

Other than display adapter drivers needing to be updated for game optimizations, the best approach to drivers and firmware updates is the "if ain't broke, don't fix it" way of handling things. I use many very old device drivers, and in the case of Windows 8 using Windows 7 drivers, intentionally because they are often better than newer drivers.

 

I see, in this case, I won't bother updating to the below update the My-Config Driver Update found:

MEI v9.5.23.1766

Realtek Card Reader Driver v6.3.273.37

and do you think it's ok to use the latest nVIDIA Drivers vs. the Alienware ones? will I lose any functionality if I use nVIDIA's version of the drivers?

One more question, when I install Windows 7, is it ok to use the Windows 8 version of the Intel Chipset, MEI, IRST, and Audio drivers since they are newer or stick to the older Windows 7 drivers?

 

Unless you are having an issue with the MEI or Card Reader, I wouldn't waste my time on it.

I don't use Dell's AMD or NVIDIA drivers because they are too old to be optimized for the most current games. They were excellent drivers at the time they were posted. Display drivers is always an exception to the rule of updating being a waste of time and energy, but display drivers are updated too fast for the OEMs to burn any calories on trying to keep with AMD and NVIDIA... futile endeavor for them.

No, you won't lose any functionality with Alienware. Although, with some of the crappy brands that are very proprietary there would be a reason to have concern about it. Optimus and Enduro increase the chances that updating display drivers causing problems on any brand. Thankfully, the dual-GPU Alienware laptop owners don't have to give that a second thought because our systems don't have hybrid graphics switching.

 

alright ese! gracias!