Question

which kind of system software tells the computer how to communicate with peripherals, such as a printer or scanner?
utility software
firmware
device driver
operating system

Explanation:

Device drivers are system - level software that enable the computer to communicate with external devices like printers and scanners. They act as translators between the operating system and the hardware device. Utility software is for tasks like disk cleanup, firmware is software embedded in hardware, and the operating system manages overall computer resources but doesn't specifically handle the low - level communication with peripherals like a device driver does.

Answer:

C. Device driver