Ati control panel - essential?

[r_holmes22]

Is it vital to have the control panel installed with Catalyst drivers? I use my laptop computer solely for office apps, Internet and e-mail (not games). I notice my computer takes a lot longer to load since I updated my graphics drivers and I have a feeling the Control Panel wasn't installed by the munfacturer, as all those options were not available before I installed the latest Cats and Control Panel. It appeared to work fine for my requirements without it.

In case any of you are wondering, I only updated my drivers because I was curious to try the TV-Out functionality and the option wasn't working with what was installed. I can now see that I can do without it and so have no requirement for the Control Panel functionality anymore. I'll bet somebody would also respond with something to the effect of 'just try it for yourself and see'. The reason I'm reluctant is that I don't want to screw something up and have to reformat, as I'm not familiar with the process of doing that without access to a floppy disk.

Hoping somebody can advise so that I can try removing the Control Panel with a little more confidence.

Many thanks.

 

[Milenko]

I don't use the control panel, I'd say get rid of it.

 

[cisco guy]

ATI control panel is in the add remove programs list
You can also install it separately if you open the driver bundle tree

My computer freezes solid without it in 3D apps\
3DMark 2001 wont run without it
I already asked this here, and nobody seems to know why.
and thats with trying everything off in bios like fastwrites, then on