TechRadar Verdict
WinZip’s Driver Updater is a tool that easily identifies outdated drivers on your PC and lets you update them. Outdated drivers can cause hardware issues and slow down your PC’s overall performance. Hence, WinZip’s Driver Updater is a perfect tool to avoid such problems.
Pros
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Easy to use
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Free version available
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Enhances PC performance
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Quick and easy installation
Cons
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Windows-only
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Relatively expensive
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Lacks extra features
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Weak customer support
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WinZip Driver Updater is a driver updater tool from WinZip Computing LLC, a leading Canadian software company. Since 2006, it has been a subsidiary of the Corel Corporation, one of Canada’s biggest homegrown software companies.
Driver Updater is one of many system optimization and security software products developed by WinZip. The company released the first version of the software over a decade ago. Since then, it has dropped many more updated versions, including the latest in February 2022.
WinZip also creates a number of solutions. It is best known for its file compression software that gives the company its name, but it also manufactures a PDF editor and an entire suite of tools that can be used for file transfers.
In this review, however, we're focusing specifically on WinZip Driver Updater, helping you decide whether it's the right tool for you or not. We’ll assess the software based on various criteria, including features, ease of use, pricing, customer support, and more.
WinZip Driver Updater review: Plans and pricing
WinZip Driver Updater is a piece of freemium software that has both a free and a premium version. Anyone can download and use the free version, but it has limited functionality. On the other hand, the premium version unlocks all the features.
The premium version costs $32 for a yearly subscription. You can pay for it directly on WinZip’s official website through PayPal or a credit/debit card. The price includes a one-year license for a single computer, which gives you free product updates and upgrades, as well as 24/7 premium support. WinZip also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for every purchase, which allows you to cancel your subscription before you've committed yourself financially.
Features
WinZip Driver Updater’s core feature is exactly as its name suggests. It runs an extensive PC scan to pick out outdated or corrupt drivers. Afterwards, it lets you update the outdated ones or download new versions of the corrupt ones.
The app includes a prominent “Start Scan Now” button. Clicking it starts a scan of your computer that shows results in a relatively short time. WinZip checks your PC’s drivers against a database of over 4 million drivers during its scan. Usually, the first time you install the software, it automatically runs this scan for you without clicking a button.
In our tests, the scan took less than a minute. The software found 21 outdated drivers and listed them in a tabular format. You can update them individually or collectively with the click of a button. The ability to update all at once is reserved for premium users.
You can set schedules for WinZip’s Driver Updater to scan your PC’s drivers automatically. It could be daily, weekly, monthly, or anytime your computer boots up afresh. This way, you ensure that you continually update your drivers without opening the app every time.
WinZip’s Driver Updater also lets you backup drivers and restore them later. This feature is helpful because some driver updates could make your PC malfunction. If you fall into that category, you can simply restore the previous driver settings to make your PC function as usual. The ability to restore your PC to its old drivers lets you roll back the clock in a similar way to the versioning that you see with some cloud storage programs.
The Driver Updater also shows you detailed information about your PC. It’s similar to the in-built “System Information” app included with every Windows PC.
Interface and in use
We found WinZip Driver Updater easy to download, install, and use. We downloaded the setup file from the official website, and installation took less than a minute. Afterwards, we began using the app.
Driver Updater has a neat, uncluttered interface. Its features fit into just three menu bars, so they’re easily accessible. You'll find five options at the top of the screen: Home, PC Scan, Backup, Options, and Register. Beneath this, there's a list of the number of outdated drivers that were found during your last scan, as well as when this took place.
It's also easy to download all the relevant drivers in one go or apply updates manually. Finally, drive details can be reviewed before you commit to a download and you can exclude drivers from future scans.
The software is also multilingual, supporting various languages, including English, French, Korean, Turkish, German, Italian, and many more.
Support
WinZip provides customer support through email only. It also provides a detailed FAQ page and user guide for WinZip Driver Updater. Some of the questions listed include how to register the driver updater and general troubleshooting tips.
There's also a very clear guide on how the process of updating your drivers works. It takes users from the very beginning, starting with how to download WinZip Driver Updater. It then talks you through the program's automatic launch, scanning and other features.
The fact that WinZip Driver Updater only comes with email support is something of a shame when compared to competitors, however. Many competing tools offer live chat and telephone support.
The competition
Standard alternatives to WinZip’s Driver Updater include Auslogics Driver Updater, DriverFix, and IObit Driver Booster. They offer similar features, but WinZip’s Driver Updater is the most expensive in the cohort.
On the other hand, WinZip Driver Updater comes with a well-known name in the industry and a reputation built over many years. There's also the option of accessing other tools from the same vendor like you see with some other providers of driver updater solutions, such as Fortect.
Final verdict
WinZip’s Driver Updater is a proper tool to ensure you never have outdated or corrupt drivers for a significant time. It effectively prevents any problems caused by faulty drivers. It’s a valuable tool for every computer user who values speed and performance.
While the support options could be better and the pricing could be lower, this is still a very respectable driver updater. The fact that the program sources drivers from original equipment manufacturers only should also be reassuring to users.
