Win XP driver guide by Rumple

[Martys Web]

Originally posted by Rumple
This is pretty long but hopefully comprehensive. I suggest you print it out to use as a future reference. Hopefully it'll fit on one page

When you change drivers, you should not just overwrite one set with the other. Whilst that works with other types of drivers and it can work sometimes with v/card drivers, it is best to use Add an Remove Progs from the Control Panel to remove previous drivers first. XP professes to remove driver entries from the registry and with all the many driver exchanges I have carried out I have found nothing to the contrary

Sometimes nVidia alters the root files of its drivers and if you overwrite these you will get a conflict and of course problems.

To ensure all remnants of your existing drivers have been removed:
Click-START then RUN and type in the dialogue box regedit and then click OK.

You will then be faced with a drop-down list. Click the cross in the box next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. When it opens, click on the cross next to SOFTWARE. Scroll down and remove any reference to NVIDIA CORPORATION by right clicking on it and deleting it.

Once you've done that, close all the boxes up and repeat the same procedure with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. You can then return to your desktop. I have not had to do this with XP, but follow this routine:

1. Go into Add and Remove Programs and click on Remove NVIDIA Windows 2000/XP Display Drivers.

2. Then click Yes to remove them from the registry.

3. If it asks you to remove nView profiles, obviously click Yes if you haven't set any, or No if you have. Personally I haven't found the need for them.

4. Then click Yes to restart.

5. After rebooting, a Wizard will ask if you want to Install software (your drivers) automatically or from a specific location.

6. Click on Specific location and then on Next.<br>

7. You will then get another box in which you should click where it says Don't search, I will choose the driver to install, Then on Next.

8. In the next box, click on Display adapters and then Next.

9. This box has a list of graphics/video cards but ignore them. Click on Have Disk and then on Next.

10. This will bring up a box called Install From Disk.

11. Click on the Browse button and when the Locate File box pops up, direct it to where you have the driver located, that you wish to install.

12. Then click on the driver to expose the display file, usually a nv4_disp or a nv4_disp.inf file. At the same time the file will appear in the File name box below.

13. Click on Open.

14. This will return you to the Install From Disk box, where the filepath will be displayed opposite the Browse button.

15. Click OK.

16. The next box will will show your card type, e.g. NVIDIA Geforce 3 Ti 500. Just click Next and it will start to install the drivers.

17. Within a split second, a warning box will appear. Completely ignore this as it is pure bull from Microsoft. nVidia are the experts at making drivers, not MS. Click on Continue Anyway and the drivers will install.

18. Finally click on Finish when it arrives.

A pop-up balloon will appear near your clock in the bottom right corner, confirming the installation is complete.

You are then ready to adjust your card and refresh rates and off you go. Eezy peezy, lemon squeezy. Have fun.
Good luck and if you have any further problems pop back and someone will sort you out.

[Kennung Eins]

I'll add some other things written by Rumple here :

Originally posted by Rumple
here's a couple of further tips that may help you. As there are such a multitude of different components that make up a pc, even two that appear very similar hardware-wise, can in fact act quite differently to each other. For that reason it's best to download a selection of drivers and then run each one through a benchmarking programme such as 3DMark 2001 to establish a comparison in performance.

The important thing to remember is to ensure all your pc settings are identical for each set of drivers benchmarked or the results will not be a true comparison.

1. Before you do any downloading of drivers, open a new folder in My Documents and label it Vid Drivers or even just Drivers so that you know where to save the downloads to.

2. Then select which... say four drivers you wish to try out and download them to the folder you have just created. To start with I'd recommend the four latest releases.

3. When you have downloaded the drivers, open the folder through Windows Explorer and see whether the drivers are executables (exe) or zip files. Executables need no further attention at this stage but the zip files need to be converted to exe files or else you will be unable to direct the Install Wizard to them.

4. To convert the zip files to exes, right click on the zipped driver file and then on Exract All from the drop down box that appears.

5. Click Next on the following two Extraction Wizard boxes that appear but whatever you do before you click Finish on the third box you are asked if you wish to show the Extracted files, uncheck the box. Then click Finish. An unzipped folder will appear already labelled to install.

6. From there you can revert to my previous guide for installation. Although to start with, it maybe an idea to use the Update Driver feature in Device Manager. You should only use this method if you are sure you are updating the drivers and not reverting to an older set.

To see which set of drivers you currently have in use: right click on your desktop, then on Properties, then left click on Settings, then again on Advanced. At the top of that next box should be the type of video card you are using, for instance Geforce Ti 4600 or Geforce 3 Ti 500 or whatever. Left click on that and it will show you the current set of drivers down at the bottom and their dll files

[Kennung Eins]

I descided to add some information from this thread.

Originally posted by JNive
Some thing that needs added to the Win XP driver guide please as would help lots of people who own XP.

I know for me and will most likely be usefull to others as well this tip. With out this tip it was impossible for me to do a clean install of a new Nvidia detenator driver cause xp's auto driver update would kick in and automatically install the driver for gts cards as default instead of the vga driver. With this usefull tip I was able to disable xp's auto driver install thus allowing me to do a clean install of the new detenator driver.

1) Run Regedit and navigate to this key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
2) Record the locations entered in the "Device Path" value..
3) Search these locations and also, if not included, these below also for any nv3.*nf, nv4.*nf or nv4_disp.inf files and delete them.
C:\WINDOWS\System32\ReinstallBackups (allsubfolders)
C:\DRIVERS\VIDEO (for Dell Systems)
C:\WINDOWS\Inf (which should be the first entry in the device path)
4) Uninstall and reboot - you should be using the standard VGA controller at this point - but if not dont worry.

*********NEW SECTION OF ADVICE**********************
5) Add ";c:\nvidia" to the end of the device path value (without the quotation marks).
6) Create a folder at c:/nvidia and extract new drivers here.

Note: For future updates - extract new drivers to c:/nvidia then uninstall Dets and reboot- afterwards the new drivers will install automatically. Then reboot again and use the RefreshTool and then reboot again and you're ready to go.
************************************************** *

7) Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\nv4 and delete this key.

Note: (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi ces\nv is the key which is used for detonator drivers whereas the nv4 is only for OEM and stock XP drivers)
8) Got to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Video
and delete any keys (eg. FF890-7895-7896-3611) which refer to detonator drivers.
(Uninstall drivers if not working under standard VGA) and reboot.
9) Drivers should now be installed automatically. Reboot and use the refreshTool. Reboot and you're ready to go.



****TO DISABLE AUTO-INSTALL OF ALL DRIVERS*********
Export the Device Path value in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion for backup purposes.
Now delete the Device Path data (all the locations entered).
XP should not be able to auto-install drivers without you manually pointing to them.
***********************************************