Do you uninstall old drivers before installing new ones?

A

AMD_Gamer

Fully [H]
Joined
Jan 20, 2002
Messages
18,287
Do you still uninstall old video card drivers before installing new ones? Just wondering how people still go about doing this these days. I know I always used to uninstall before an update.
 
I never bother unless I get major issues. So far that hasn't happened in a long time...
 
After uninstalling the drivers I used driver sweeper in safe mode before installing the new ones.
But now I just choose the clean/fresh install option in the Nvidia installer.
 
It's completely not necessary if the driver you are installing is a newer version as AMD/Nvidia have built in wiping algorithms in their software

If you want to install OLDER drivers, then yes.

Driver sweeper is only necessary if you run into problems uninstalling the drivers via the provided uninstaller included with the drivers
 
the new drivers drivers you can just install. they dont even require a restart anymore
 
Both AMD and NVIDIA will tell you officially that there is no need to uninstall first.
 
Recently I have been uninstalling first. Maybe next time I'll just give it a shot and see if the installer takes care of everything with no problem.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
Do you still uninstall old video card drivers before installing new ones? Just wondering how people still go about doing this these days. I know I always used to uninstall before an update.
Click to expand...

i've always updated over the old drivers. never had an issue with AMD or Nvidia. the only time i ever uninstalled AMD drivers before installing a new version was with a couple of the beta versions which had files with older dates then the ones from the version before it. but i rarely ever bother with the beta drivers since that system is a laptop i barely use.
 
I always install the new driver over the new one,without uninstalling them.

Except the time that 11.6b screwed me,gave me Black Screen of Death then i had to remove it in Safe Mode with SriverSweeper before reinstall 11.5.
 
Anth0789 said:
I use driver sweeper and it does a good job cleaning in safe mode.
Click to expand...


Two things:

1. Read what that guy Kyle said! (he might know more then we think he does)
2. Driver Sweeper was discontinued which should kind of tell you something.


:)
 
I used to uninstall but now I just install over the top.

The times when I do feel I would benefit from uninstalling, I use the built-in express uninstall.

I definitely would NOT recommend any crapware like Driver Sweeper
 
Stopped uninstalling about a year ago. Used to do the whole Driver Sweeper dance in safe mode. Now I just install the new Nvidia drivers with no prep and have noticed zero difference compared to my old paranoid way.
 
I don't bother, unless there's problems. In my experience (with nVidia drivers at least) there's no problem with just installing over top of what is there. Also I want to keep all my settings since I customize things per game. I do a clean install only when I encounter a problem, to make sure it isn't a driver issue.

It also became much less of an issue in Windows Vista and 7 since MS changed the way the drivers work and they are mostly user mode now, it just cut down on a lot of the potential problems.

I've also pretty much sworn off driver cleaners, since they don't seem to have kept up with the times. I own a license for DriverCleaner.NET and used it on a Windows 7 system that was having problems. Ended up just being a bug in the AMD drivers that got fixed later. So then Service Pack 1 comes out... And it won't install. Gives a really weird error. Much stress and trouble shooting later, including digging through massive logs, and the problem is DC.NET is way to aggressive and deleted the AMD stuff built in to Windows, and SP1 checks to verify all files are present and proper before upgrading (to avoid issues).

A reinstall ended up being the easiest solution.

So unless you've a reason, just install over top of things. Works for me basically all the time. It is also how Windows update does it, if you leave your drivers to it.
 
J32P said:
Two things:

1. Read what that guy Kyle said! (he might know more then we think he does)
2. Driver Sweeper was discontinued which should kind of tell you something.


:)
Click to expand...

Not true. Driver Sweeper just released an update on September 24th. I find it necessary to use this program at times to remove files that nVidia forgets.
 
I just install over the top. If there happens to be problems than I uninstall the old and install the new.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top