Will I need to install drivers after reinstalling Windows?

Probably, but not necessarily.

I know, that’s not very helpful, but the problem is that once again this is a question with a hundred different answers, or more.

It depends on your machine, the specific installation of Windows you’re using, and your own needs and preferences.

I’ll walk through the what, why and how of drivers you might need after a reinstall.

Drivers are the pieces of software that “know about” the hardware. Most of Windows is designed to be completely hardware independent or agnostic, but at the lowest level there still needs to be software that has the knowledge to transform a generic request like “draw a rectangle with these characteristics” into the hardware-specific operations required by the graphics card installed on your machine.

One of Windows’ great selling points is that it works with a wide variety of hardware – often hardware that wasn’t even in existence when Windows was designed. This is done by having a well defined way of creating and installing drivers that can support new and custom hardware.

Windows itself comes with a fairly amazing collection of drivers on the installation disc. Many, many common hardware components are simply handled “right out of the box” without any thought or intervention on your part. USB drivers, motherboard components, hard disks, and more all require drivers, and for the most part those drivers are all right there from the moment you install.

But, since it’s possible that the device and its drivers didn’t even exist when Windows was created, what if they’re not?

Windows has several approaches to dealing with devices for which it does not have default drivers.

• Default Behaviour: all key devices – devices that simply must work in order to even use Windows – are required to support some base level of functionality in order to be “Windows compatible”. Video cards must support 800×600 resolution; keyboard must support the basic keys; mice must support mouse movement and a right and left mouse button, and so on. And these pieces of hardware must support those features in a predefined generic way that can then be used by the default drivers already included in Windows.What this means is that even though your machine has a brand new whizzy gaming enhanced high speed super duper video graphics card that might support much, much more, when you first install Windows you might not be able to access all its features, and may well be limited to lower resolutions, color depths and display speeds. But it’ll work.
• OEM Installations: One of the major differences between the versions of Windows offered by different OEMS like HP, Dell and others is that they can pre-load their versions of the Windows discs with their specific drivers (and remove drivers for machines that they don’t sell). That’s one of the reasons that one manufacturer’s disc may not work to install Windows on another machine – the OEM disc is free to make basic assumptions about the capabilities of the hardware it’s being installed on that may simply be incorrect when used on any other machine.When using an OEM install disc on a machine that it was targeted for, you may find that more devices work more completely than had you used a generic retail installation disc, or an installation disc meant for some other machine.
• Windows Update: I ran across this recently myself, and it might be only available in newer versions of Windows: after installing Windows 7 and getting a “generic” network driver for my network adapter, Windows Update kicked in and updated that driver to one more specific for my particular hardware.When you think about it, it makes sense. The Windows installation discs are by definition limited to containing only those drivers that were available at the time the disk was created. Windows Update has no such restriction – as soon as the drivers pass whatever quality assurance process is necessary, they can be made available for download. (Check your optional updates, or visit the Windows Update website.)
• Manual Installation: naturally if your device does not have a complete driver on the Windows installation disc, and nothing’s available via Windows Update, then it’s typically up to you locate and install drivers for that device. Often that means using the installation disc that came with the device, or downloading the drivers from the manufacturer’s web site.

Even with that list addressing “where do drivers come from”, the decision’s still not as cut and dried as you might think.

Let’s say you’ve installed your system and it’s working well without you having to install any additional drivers on your own. There may still be additional drivers available that enable features you didn’t realize you could have.

As an example, I believe my laptop keyboard is likely to be more configurable if I were to download specific drivers from the manufacturer. But it’s working well with the default drivers and I don’t miss the features.

Should I install the more specific drivers or not?

I’ve elected not to, taking the position “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. However, others may feel differently.

Ultimately, the answer to your original question is technically “no”: all the drivers to get your machine up and running are included either in the retail Windows installation disc, or the OEM installation disc for your machine. However, you might find that it’s not enough. Depending on your hardware, and even your own preferences, you may still want to go out and locate updated, specific drivers to enable additional features and functionality in the hardware you have.

But at least your machine will be up and running without needing to do that.