How does the operating system manage hardware and peripheral devices?

 

The OS uses a special program called a device driver to manage hardware and peripheral devices. Each device connected to your computer has a device driver. A device driver is special program that facilitates the communication between the hardware and the operating system. The program translates the commands in a way so the OS can understand and vice versa. If a device does not have a device driver, the OS would not know how to correspond with the device. Without this correspondence, the operating system would not know how to use the devices and they would not work.