Today, in the comments, I was prompted by one interesting way that can solve some problems with Wi-Fi in Windows 10. And there are enough problems there. On the Windows 10 instructions page, you can already find more than 10 articles with different tips and solutions. So, today I will show you how to update the Wi-Fi adapter driver in Windows 10 through the device manager. We will consider exactly updating the driver when the system searches for the driver on the computer, or on the Internet (if it is connected).
This method should help solve the problem with the "Cannot connect to this network" error, when you cannot turn on Wi-Fi on the laptop (not active switch), when the connection is "Limited", etc.
In any case, if Wi-Fi does not work for you in Windows 10, then the advice from this article is a must-try. This post is an addition to the article Solving problems with the wireless Wi-Fi adapter driver in Windows 10, in which I wrote about replacing the driver from the list of installed ones, and how to remove and roll it back.
How do I update the wireless adapter driver in Windows 10?
The best way is, of course, to download the driver from the official website, for our model and for Windows 10, and reinstall it. But, as a rule, such a driver is not available for all laptops (adapters). Therefore, let's try another way.
It is desirable that the laptop be connected to the Internet. Yes, I know that Wi-Fi is not working. Therefore, if possible, connect to the Internet via a network cable. For a while.
Next, you need to open the device manager. To do this, right-click on the start menu, and select "Device Manager". Or, search for it and open it.
Open the "Network adapters" tab, find the adapter in the name of which is "Wi-Fi", or "Wireless", right-click on it, and select "Update drivers". By the way, there may be a yellow exclamation mark near the adapter itself. This suggests that it is not working properly.
If you do not have such an adapter at all, then most likely the system could not find a driver. You need to search and install it manually (see the end of this article).
We select the item "Automatic search for updated drivers".
A search will go, and if the driver is found, you will see the installation process.
And a message about successful installation.
Search for a Wi-Fi adapter driver by name
If on the website of the manufacturer of your laptop or adapter you cannot find drivers for your model and the tenth version of Windows, but the adapter is in the device manager, then you can try to find it by the name of the adapter itself.
I managed. On the ASUS website, for my laptop ASUS K56CM there are no drivers for Windows 10. But, I found them by the name of the adapter. In order not to rewrite the name in the search manually, you can copy it.
Right-click on the adapter and select Properties. Then, go to the "Details" tab. Right-click on the title and select "Copy".
We search by name in Yandex, or Google.
Driver installation via device manager (if there is no .exe file)
Perhaps you will download the driver in an archive (rar, or zip), where there will be no installer (file with the .exe extension, after which the installation will go). To install it, you need to extract the contents of the archive, open the device manager again, on the "Network adapters" tab, right-click on our adapter and select "Update drivers" (I wrote about this above).
If you do not have an adapter (the driver has not been installed yet), then it will be as "Unknown device" with a yellow icon. Click on it. If there are several of them, then we use the "typing method" (we check each).
Select the item "Search for drivers on this computer."
By clicking on the "Browse" button, select the folder where we extracted the downloaded drivers. Click on the "Next" button.
If you are lucky, the system will install the driver, and Wi-Fi will work for you.
