Question : How do I find what devices a computer or laptop has?

HI

I have lots of different PC and laptop that I am always trying to find drivers for. Sometimes I do not have the CD that have all the drivers for every PC and laptop I come across.
As you should know when there are no drivers installed on windows hardware is listed in device manager as a very common device. For example video card, audio device, network controller and so on. This does not help me much are there can be many different types of network cards installed to one PC or laptop.

Would also like to be able to tell what motherboard and chipsets the computers have.

I would like to know how do I find what hardware the computer is running so I can get the correct drivers for it. Can this be done on windows 7/vista/xp before any drivers have been installed?

Is there any tools that I do not need to install that will run on the go(from CD) that can list all the hardware. Would like to get a free tool to do this.

I would prefer to be able to not use a 3rd party tool to do this if possible.


One last point is I do not want to have to open cases to read what brand and model is on the computers.

Answer : How do I find what devices a computer or laptop has?

"Is there any tools that I do not need to install that will run on the go(from CD) that can list all the hardware."

I read this sentence in a way that you seemed to be looking especially for boot CDs.

If you want simply a portable free info and diag tool, check out all the ones here starting from AIDA32 and below, they are all free and some of them really good:
http://www.pendriveapps.com/software/system-information-tools/