My policy while the computer is newish and still covered by Dell support/warranty. 

* I use Dell provided drivers only

* I do not install drivers offered by Windows Updates

* I do not install drivers offered by manufacturers

It's always best to uninstall the old driver before installing the new unless the instructions specifically say otherwise.

Consider: if you install non-Dell drivers and you call Dell for tech support, then having non-Dell drivers could complicate their ability to troubleshoot your problem.

As your computer ages you might be forced to look elsewhere for driver updates if something stops working, but while your computer is newish you should not need to do this.

We have a new XPS M1330 in our family. I printed out the driver download page, then I went thorough it and identified the drivers that applied to my computer, a process that isn't as easy as it should be. I looked for any drivers that were published after my computer shipped and install them. Periodically, I'll review the driver downloads page and look for new releases that affect my computer. I like to run with the latest drivers installed.

I also uninstalled some of the fluff installed by Dell to eliminate some of the bloat.

Hope this feedback helps a little,

Lilla

Thanks for the great advice lilla.  I'm going to run a similar schedule to yours.

Yep, llila suggestion is the way to go.

What I do while considering to download a new driver from Dell is go into device manager on my machine, find my current driver and note its version number.  Then I check that against the driver at the Dell sight to see if that version is newer; if not, I don't download it; it it is, I then download it; have had no problems so far.

RickM46