Have you ever noticed how many drivers on your system are dated June 21st, 2006?  If not, pop open device manager and take a look at some of your devices which don't use a driver directly from the manufacturer.  Slashdot posted a link to the inimitable Raymond Chen who explains exactly why so many of your drivers bear that date.  The short version is that this is a workaround which prevents newer Microsoft drivers from overwriting manufacturer's drivers by ensuring the date stamp on the Microsoft driver will never have a more recent date.  This is especially important for laptop users as even the simple chipset drivers will be supplied by the manufacturer.  For instance this processor is old, but not that old!

"When the system looks for a driver to use for a particular piece of hardware, it ranks them according to various criteria. If a driver provides a perfect match to the hardware ID, then it becomes a top candidate. And if more than one driver provides a perfect match, then the one with the most recent timestamp is chosen."

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