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Removing old drivers tips

Just uninstall the old driver first from the Programs control panel just like you would any other application. For the most part the built-in uninstallers do a pretty good job getting rid of most stuff.
 
Basinger said:
If you don't want to spend the money you could try-

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Though I've never used it, I hear good things.

These sweeper programs are well worth it as they save you the hassle of registry hunts.
Click to expand...

In my experience these cleaners are needed only when switching between different companies' GPUs or when downgrading a later driver version to an earlier one.
 
E4g1e said:
In my experience these cleaners are needed only when switching between different companies' GPUs or when downgrading a later driver version to an earlier one.
Click to expand...

I'm switching companies...:confused:
 
Basinger said:
If you don't want to spend the money you could try-

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Though I've never used it, I hear good things.

These sweeper programs are well worth it as they save you the hassle of registry hunts.
Click to expand...
Another vote for Driver Sweeper. I've used it many times with good results. No Driver Sweeper = buggy/problematic driver install. Driver Sweeper = smooth driver install.
 
I've used Driver Sweeper with much success, I switched from Nvidia to ATI with no issues.
 
I use Driver Cleaner Pro , unfortunately newer versions are not free anymore. If you can find a old free version you won't be disappointed.
 
I uninstall my drivers in the control panel.

Then, reboot into safe-mode and run Driver Sweeper.

Restart, and finally install the new driver set.
 
Driver cleaners are unnecessary and useless. They simply base the files they delete on filenames they are aware of, yet those are changed every few drivers when NVIDIA or ATI add or remove files from the packages.. new files come and go, drivers sometimes make new files post install and sometimes don't. The driver cleaners can't keep up and delete every single file anyway.

Both ATI and NVIDIA support overinstalling now and it works fine.

If you're paranoid, just uninstall from the control panel, reboot and install. Don't try to delete any remnant old files as they'll be overwritten anyway. Even if they stay on your system, they can't do anything.. you'd need to have an active driver installation referring to them, and that doesn't happen if the drivers do not use the file anymore. If they do use it, they will have already overwritten it upon install.

Driver cleaners are a pretty big scam guys.
 
Uninstall the drivers with the new card in it or with the old one ?
 
Last edited:
BlueStorm said:
Driver cleaners are unnecessary and useless. They simply base the files they delete on filenames they are aware of, yet those are changed every few drivers when NVIDIA or ATI add or remove files from the packages.. new files come and go, drivers sometimes make new files post install and sometimes don't. The driver cleaners can't keep up and delete every single file anyway.

Both ATI and NVIDIA support overinstalling now and it works fine.

If you're paranoid, just uninstall from the control panel, reboot and install. Don't try to delete any remnant old files as they'll be overwritten anyway. Even if they stay on your system, they can't do anything.. you'd need to have an active driver installation referring to them, and that doesn't happen if the drivers do not use the file anymore. If they do use it, they will have already overwritten it upon install.

Driver cleaners are a pretty big scam guys.
Click to expand...

I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with you.

I have personally had instances with ATi HDMI drivers not functioning properly when I simply did an uninstall of the previous version from the control panel. Then poof, I use driver cleaner and they work. That for me is enough to know they are doing something right.
 
Webb said:
Uninstall the drivers with the new card in it or with the old one ?
Click to expand...

I generally uninstall the old drivers while the old card is in, do a driver cleaning, then pop the new card in and install the new drivers.
 
You should be fine to simply uninstall the card in Device Manager. If you have problems, you may need to use a cleaner program.

Most of my experience is with upgrades between different Nvidia cards, but I did recently upgrade to ATI with an Nvidia card for PhysX, and I did lots of experimenting with different drivers, and I never used any cleaner app. If everything works as it's supposed to, you shouldn't need one.
 
I used 3D Guru to delete the drivers,when the computer restarted,the PC downloads the driver again automatically.:mad:

Happened twice already.

Also the Nvidia drivers can't be deleted from the Control Panel.I delete them when I go back they still there.

Any suggestions ?
 
The drivers reinstalled because you left the card in your system. After uninstalling the drivers from device manager, shut down the system. Remove the old video card. Put in the new card. Install new drivers. Done.
 
I always removed from the Windows control panel Never had any issues with it, going from one card of the same brand to another of the same brand or from ATI to nVidia/nVidia to ATI. I prefer to reformat if I swap brands of cards though since it usually means its been 6 months to a year and I like reformatting for some reason.

You need to take the video card out after you remove all drivers for it or it will reinstall them since Windows needs a driver to display properly and it has the driver saved somewhere already... And nVidia can be removed from CP perfectly fine. If you're having trouble with it, remove them in safe mode. Or you can do it really easily and just put in the ATI card and then remove all nVidia stuff before downloading proper ATI drivers. It really doesnt matter.
 
Webb said:
I used 3D Guru to delete the drivers,when the computer restarted,the PC downloads the driver again automatically.:mad:

Happened twice already.

Also the Nvidia drivers can't be deleted from the Control Panel.I delete them when I go back they still there.

Any suggestions ?
Click to expand...
Yeah, if I recall Driver Cleaner's instructions, they recommend rebooting into Safe Mode (without networking) to perform the clean after uninstalling the drivers. There's always a default VGA driver.

I haven't used it since Vista (and now Win 7). No problems, but no major vendor changes either.
 
for those of you who update/downgrade/switch drivers frequently... would a tool like ccleaner's reg cleaner suffice? (along with uninstalling via ati/nvidia uninstaller + control panel uninstalling of course)

i ask cuz i recommend this tool to a few ppl and i've always been under the impression this would take care of stuff like registry trash left behind. havent really had problems that would help to identify a "better" driver cleaner but any thoughts on this or comparisons?
 
snoozininsomniac said:
for those of you who update/downgrade/switch drivers frequently... would a tool like ccleaner's reg cleaner suffice? (along with uninstalling via ati/nvidia uninstaller + control panel uninstalling of course)

i ask cuz i recommend this tool to a few ppl and i've always been under the impression this would take care of stuff like registry trash left behind. havent really had problems that would help to identify a "better" driver cleaner but any thoughts on this or comparisons?
Click to expand...
I haven't had much luck with registry cleaners. They always manage to remove that one extra thing that makes the system unstable.

On those machines that I upgrade/experiment with frequently, the best registry cleaner is the install disk (or slipstreamed facsimile thereof). :)
 
remove all nvidia crap from add/remove
shutdown
swap cards
install cats

jobs done, dont bother with useless 3rd party programs
 
Pfft, you guys are paranoid. Just put the new card in and run with it, if it doesn't run as expected then try driver cleaner. The only time I've had to use such a cleaner/sweeper program was when I downgraded to an older driver and had a few issues.

I've swapped from nvidia to ati and ati back to nvidia all without even uninstalling drivers let alone driver cleaning them and I get the performance and stability I'd expect from reading reviews and benchmarks (8800GTS -> 4870 and back to the 8800GTS).

You might get problems as you always might get problems when installing new drivers whether you do or dont use driver cleaner. I've only ever had 1 problem with not deleting a driver and that was due to downgrading, but likewise there was also only one time I driver swept and had a problem.
 
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