What is THE (best) way to remove drivers?

For those of us that fiddle with reg settings, use 3rd part OCers, and muck with alpha/beta releases, the installer isnt sufficient to remove all the things we break...

lol

 

I don't. I just install the new drivers. Is this bad? I've never had a problem with this method.

 

If youve never had a problem, great....

most of us arent the lucky...

 

I've used Driver Sweeper and atiman, first version, And have always found
left over entries in different folders.
Don't use them anymore.

Been running ATI or now AMD cards for last 7 years, Nvidia before that, and never had a
problem cleaning drivers out, Short of format, which some do.
To much trouble.

But after normal uninstall, I have always used the registry as is the source.
(Wouldn't recommend) deleting entries and keys there (UNLESS) you feel comfortable there.

I remove all items pertaining to ATI and AMD,Folders,subFolders and keys.
There always there despite cleaners.

If running an AMD system, Be careful what you remove as to AMD entries!

Works for me and squeaky clean installs but not for everyone.

Later

 

I did a full system restore after running Atiman - it made some of my systray icons disappear, and overall seemed to be doing way more than it should to my system. I don't trust it.

 

until you re-install the cats, obviously anything to do with graphics will break temporarily. just re-install the cats and reboot and it will all come back.

for example, on my system after i take the cats off the following breaks: Afterbrurner, Logitech Gaming Software, LCDHost, Aida64, Radeon Pro, etc..

they are only crashed till it gets some kind of driver...

you are being overly paranoid...

 

oh ok, i didnt realize that. I saw a bunch of icons besides CCC and got paranoid

 

think about it this way:

If you are waitstaff in a restaurant, and the manager decides to temporarily brick up the door to the kitchen, how do you do your job?

If your anything like the waitstaff ive worked with (im a bartender), you thorw up your hands, create a scene and have a temper tantrum...

or you pack up your **** and go hide somewhere where no one can find you...

lol

 

I feel obligated to add my own jocularity.

A sledge hammer to the hard drive removes pretty much everything. :chainsaw2: :banana:

Seriously though, atiman rules in my opinion. Works great on bricked doors.

 

I just found out something.

The drivers *WILL NOT* install if your CPU is overclocked too high. It simply will wind up hanging at a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left. Always at the same time, every time, and nothing to do with an unstable CPU. It's almost like there's a timing issue or something.

If you lower the overclock, the drivers will install just fine and then you can reclock back up again.

 

Lol.
It's a safe bet the problem lies with your unstable overclock rather than unstable drivers...

 

I've heard a lot about Atiman, but until I see some info on how it actually works from the developer, or at least a decent web page (nothing fancy, just more than a Greek phpBB/web hybrid with bad layout), I don't trust it, regardless of the benefits it seems to bring for you people.

For all it's worth, here's my method:

1. Catalyst Install Manager -> Express Uninstall All ATI software
2. CAP Profiles -> Uninstall
3. Reboot to safe mode
4. Run Driver Sweeper (3.2.0, from *******.net)
5. Reboot to normal mode
6. Install new drivers, new CAP's
7. Reboot

Driver Sweeper is ok, but it doesn't seem to clean completely: all my CCC settings are the same as previous in a new install. I guess they are stored in a regkey.

For the record, these are the files it cleans up after a AMD uninstall. Those 2 DLL files seem quite necessary to remove - mentioned in a lot of game crash reports.

 

I was anxious that ATIman does too much or deletes something important, but its very effective and does everything for you, you just need to press 2 buttons, A for automatic uninstall and C for Continue after the reboot into the ATIman's gui. Used it for 2 months now and am enjoying it

 

LOL... I'm way too lazy to do all these steps. I just uninstall via control panel, reboot then install the new ones. I have been doing it this way for 10+ years and never had a problem.

 

*sigh

I've decided to update my drivers because Deus Ex HR is running pretty slow in my system. Looking at my specs it may just be the CPU more then anything else, but I thought updating the drivers wouldn't hurt as it's been ages. The reason it's been ages is the last time I tried, all sorts of shenanigans ensued, involving .Net reinstalls, sweeps, registry nonsense and takeown prompts etc etc..

The very simple question I want to know is:

When I am uninstalling the ATI Install manager should this remove the display driver and make everything "go big", or do I then reboot into safe mode and run driver sweeper to do this? When I uninstalled the Install Manager the resolution stayed the same and the CCC is still there? It should be simple!!

 

I just use AMDs built in removal tool that comes with their driver packages. Never had a problem. No safe mode either.

 

Managed to update drivers relatively easily.

I followed this guide.

Later in that same thread someone asked a question I had regarding the HKEY CURRENT USER ati stuff and it was suggested to leave that alone as it shouldn't conflict with driver installs. So I did.

The only things I encountered which were different were:

I used CCleaner to uninstall the ATI manager 1st time. This seems to skip the option for "Express Uninstall" and just uninstalled the ATI Manager and left the CCC. Whether this is a common problem or one specific to my banjaxed system I don't know. So I used system restore to get the ATI Manager back and uninstalled via Control Panel.

During this uninstall the screen "went big" (apologies for lack of technical terms..), but then reverted to normal resolution and in Device Manager there was an ATI driver still assigned to the Display Adapter. I used the Uninstall button in the Display adapter properties box.

When I rebooted, Windows started trying to assign a driver and I used Task Manager to halt that process. I then installed the new Catalyst package and after a very long reboot, I changed the resolution back to the normal size and the correct drivers were assigned and everything is working fine!:grad:

 

To get rid completely of the old registry entries, Driver Sweeper is not enough. Add step 5.5 to delete Standard VGA device from windows device manager. Next reboot and let Standard VGA automatically reinstall and only then proceed to the final step 6 to install new drivets.

Deleting Standard VGA device helps much whenever your new driver installation comes out messed up, in this case uninstall them all, reboot and delete Standard VGA and your new driver will install right.

 

From the list provided above, yes it does miss the register keys that store the catalyst settings. It also misses the AOD key and the FUEL key as well. Interesting in that it did not remove the reg keys under users.

 

Why? That is not connected to the actual AMD driver at all.