How to REALLY uninstall drivers in WinXP?

[Sfanger]

Most of us have played the games of evaluating numerous video driver versions and have been concerned about a "clean,total" uninstall to prevent conflicts and poor performance.

Lately I've seen several posts regarding WinXP implying that the "add/remove programs" feature doesn't do a thorough job in totally uninstalling nvidia drivers. I've also read several rather detailed procedures involving renaming files and editing registry entries. The DetonatorDestroyer program doesn't work under XP.

Does anyone have a feel for this issue, and perhaps a straightforward procedure to follow when deleting nvidia drivers under XP??????

Thanks to all for your input.

[PeteStepanoff]

LAST EDITED ON Sep-28-02 AT 08:55AM (EDT)[p]I have read a lot of horror stories regarding the need for removing the old Detonator (nVidia) drivers, but I must say that I have never had to remove the old drivers with XP.
I just simply install the newer drivers when they are released and let them overwrite the old instalation. I have even reinstalled older drivers over the new drivers by simly telling the system, to overwrite the newer files with the old.
So as far as I'm concerned there was never a need to manualy purge the registry of the older installs.

Maybe I was/am just lucky! I usually install every new release of the Detonator drivers. Presently using 40.71

WinXP has a great backup system that lets you reload the previous drivers, if the later ones don't satisfy you. The only drawback is it will only let you return to the last drivers used prior to the latest upgrade.

http://members.cox.net/pstepanoff/images/OK_c2.gif
Pete S. ==Near Oklahoma City==

[Sfanger]

LAST EDITED ON Sep-28-02 AT 11:02AM (EDT)[p]LAST EDITED ON Sep-28-02 AT 11:00 AM (EDT)

From what I read, you may have been lucky.

With many of the newer drivers being in the ".EXE" format (automatic install) it's a different ballgame. If you can find them in the ZIP format they can obviously be expanded into individual install files - easier to control.

Back to the original topic . . . my thought was that if XP doesn't do a total uninstall, what do we have to do to implement one? Reading various threads suggest that a deficiency exists, conflicts and problems do occur, and taking special actions during an XP driver uninstall seems to be a prudent activity. I'm begging the question "What extra actions need to be taken - and how are the actions to be performed"?

[Simon Evans]

After uninstalling the drivers you can delete all nv*.inf files, then remove NVidia references in the Registry. I have detailed this recently.
www.guru3d.com has a detailed guide to uninstalling and installing Dets.

It should NOT be necessary to manually remove registry entries for EVERY det upgrade. However, 29.xx, 30.xx and 40.xx drivers show sufficient variation in how they write to the registry that a full removal is mandatory if problems are to be avoided when moving between versions.


Simon Evans

[Sfanger]

TNX, Simon

I'll check it out. I'd suspect that some of the "garbage" left behind can have subtle effects, but as an accumulated total result in appreciable degradation.

I saw one such post on GURU3D earlier in the week, but it was so poorly written that several people bitched at the author. He attempted to rewrite it with minimal success.

Jim