'Clean Driver Installation' Guide

Clean Driver Installation Guide (for Win XP)

The purpose of this post is to be a fail-safe, idiot-proof guide to installing your graphics drivers. There are five so-called "regular" steps that you should always follow when installing new drivers, and I have also included a series of extra steps (in chronological order) for those who have serious driver troubles, and cannot resolve their problems by following the regular uninstallation process. If anybody has suggestions on how I could improve this guide, please share them here. NOTE! I purposely excluded the registry entries/directories/files that are already cleaned by Driver Cleaner in extra steps #1 and #2, and only included entries/directories/files which are not cleaned by Driver Cleaner Pro, my assumption hence being that everyone who follows this guide will use Driver Cleaner Pro to clean out most of the remnants of old Catalyst driver components.

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Before proceeding, please make a System Restore Point using Windows System Restore [Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore] and download and install the following:

• CCleaner (Not compulsory, but highly recommended)
• Driver Cleaner Professional

Also make sure to have .NET 2.0 at a minimum installed if using Catalyst Control Center.

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Removing old drivers

STEP 1. Navigate to Add/Remove Programs [Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs] and uninstall the ATI Catalyst driver components in the following order. Don't reboot before I tell you to!

1) Catalyst Control Center / Ray Adams ATI Tray Tools
2) ATI Display Driver
3) ATI - Software Uninstall Utility​

STEP 2. Reboot your PC and go into Safe Mode when your PC is rebooting, by tapping F8 during the black screen with ~4 or 5 lines of text which comes before the Windows loading screen, and then selecting 'Safe Mode' as the startup type, and 'Windows XP' as the Operating System.

STEP 3. Log on to an administrator account (doesn't matter which one, but I'd suggest you use your own), and once at your desktop, start Driver Cleaner Professional. In the 'Cleaning Selection', tick 'Select multiple cleaning filters' and choose everything starting with "ATI". Then press the "Start" button, and after the program is done cleaning, close it.

STEP 4. Start CCleaner and go to the 'Issues' section. Tick all of the filters, and run the scanner, remembering to create a registry backup when it automatically prompts you to! Run the scanner again as many times as needed until nothing shows up at the screen, creating a registry backup each time. Alternatively, you can use another registry cleaning program if you don't find CCleaner appealing.

(Extra Step 1.) Delete the following files/folders/directories if present:

Code:

C:\Program Files\ATI Multimedia
C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies
C:\Program Files\Ray Adams
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ati*.*
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Drivers\ati*.*
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\ApplicationHistory\cli.exe.c88dbd71.ini
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\ATI
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\atitray

Note #1) ATI*.* refers to any files beginning with "ATI".

Note #2) If you are not sure whether a particular file is an ATI driver component, right-click it, select Properties, and then look at the 'Created' date. If it roughly coincides with the date on which you installed your previous Catalyst Display Driver, it's probably one you should delete.

Note #3) If no files beginning with "ATI" exist in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 or C:\WINDOWS\system32\Drivers directories, don't worry about it; Driver Cleaner already took care of them.

(Extra Step 2.) Open Registry Editor [Start > Run > Type "regedit" (without the quotes)] and delete the following keys if they exist:

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI Technologies
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ray Adams
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Ray Adams
HKEY_USERS\[user]\Software\ATI
HKEY_USERS\[user]\Software\ATI Technologies
HKEY_USERS\[user]\Software\ATI Technologies Inc.
HKEY_USERS\[user]\SOFTWARE\Ray Adams
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ati HotKey Poller
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ATI Smart
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ati2mtaa
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ati2mtag
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ati2mpab
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atitray
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\R oot\LEGACY_ATITRAY

(Extra Step 3.) Now navigate to your C:\Windows\inf directory, right-click on empty space and select Properties. In the Attributes section, untick "Hidden" such that all files and folders inside the C:\Windows\inf directory are visible. Hit OK. Still in the C:\Windows\inf directory, scroll down until you encounter files entitled "oemxx.inf", where the "xx" -part is any number. Open each one in Notepad, and check which ones contain ATI-related data in them. If in doubt, observe the 'Created' date again. Delete the inf files containing ATI-related data as you find them, making sure to also delete the corresponding .PNF files. NOTE! You will not be able to roll back to your previous driver if you delete the inf files! New inf files are created each time you install a display driver however, so you will not screw anything up by deleting them this one time.

(Extra Step 4.) Now navigate to Device Manager [Start > Settings > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager], and make sure that there are no yellow question marks next to items in the "Display adapters" section. If there are, uninstall each item by right-clicking it and selecting "Uninstall".

Step 5. Reboot and install your new driver in normal mode as you usually would.

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Links:

• TweakGuides: Catalyst Installation
• Rage3D Forum: Guide to Uninstall ATI Drivers Completely!
• Rage3D Forum: Foolproof Uninstall/install method
• Rage3D Forum: Clean Driver Install

 

good job. me votes sticky kk!

 

To be honest i really don't get these guides. Everybody is uding "DriverCleaner" wich imho in most of the cases f*cks up the system more that in solves / cleans.

it just show's how many people don't know how to unistall drivers or remove software.

Same for CCleaner as it does clean files very well, it can really hoax your register and allot more if you don't know what it does.

 

It might also be instuctive to include a nvidia uninstall/install, since not everyone has ATI?

Btw, driver cleaner has never done anything bad to my pc.

 

Nah, Driver Cleaner does exactly what it's advertised to do: It cleans the remnants of old drivers which the ATI Uninstaller Utility fails to do. Imagine it to be, in effect, a method to ensure that that your computer is as clean of anything and everything ATI-related as it was before you installed your very first graphics card driver (ie, after you either reformatted your HDD or installed Windows on a new HDD). Any "problems" it may seemingly cause aren't related to the program itself, but rather an external factor, in which case the program just exposes these problems, but isn't the actual cause.

True, but that's what the registry backups are for. It's only if you don't make a backup that it can mess up your registry, but even then, it's the user's fault because I specifically advised the user to create a backup each and every time they run the registry scanner. In most cases however, I admit, using Driver Cleaner and CCleaner isn't necessary, but as I said, this is a "fail-safe, idiot-proof" method of installing drivers and ensuring maximum compatibility.

 

Hmph, seems no-one's interested.... :frown:

 

Actually that's exactly what I needed. I had read something on the lines of this before but they had suggested I also use the CabCleaner part of drivercleaner pro. After running that as well, that’s when I booted into win XP and it told me I had significantly changed my hardware!! DOH.
Anyhow tonight I shall give that order a try and install 7.3 from scratch.

One thing that bugs me and I admit to is that when I had installed 7.3 originally over my 7.1( which was over my 7.2) it actually worked well no issues. What seems to have messed up is that after installing 7.3, I then went and installed ATI Tools, ATI tray and WinClock. When I realized that all these things do NOT play well with CCC I uninstalled them but from what I see, there are still things messing up my system from having had installed these.

It might be beneficial for me to just reformat.

On last question... from a fresh install of XP... when should you install your ATI CCC/drivers? After DirectX? After you have done a full windows UuDate?
reason I ask is the first time I did install 7.2 on my system from a fresh install of XP it told me I did not have the framework stuff installed. It's why I ask about how important I guess to what... install all updates to windows FIRST and then your drivers? Obviously I would need my network card installed first though just so I can actually log on to the net to get the updates.

Thanks!

 

Do not expect overwhelming reply count in any thread in ATI driver section. Sad thing that there's no good driver cleaning program for Vista (that is free). ATI driver uninstaller is really bad and leaves loads of **** behind, got BSOD when I uninstalled 7.2 drivers and 7.3 drivers just do not work.

 

I used to have problems with drivers....
Then I stoped trying to uninstall the old drivers, "clean up" using cccleaner and other various utilities... like registry cleaners.
I stopped doing all that messing about and I have had zero problems since.
I saw that on occasion, you uninstall the old drivers and windows file protection would go "hold up there buddy" and put the default windows files back for certain files, put older ati files back for others or leave the newer ones. That's where you get your problems.
Since I have just installed the new driver over top of the old windows doesn't intervene and everything works smoothly. I haven't had a hard lock from a game in a long time.

 

Decent guide.

You should change the title to include 'in XP'

 

1. Install Motherboard/chipset drivers
2. Install Microsoft Updates
3. Install latest DirectX
4. Install any perhipial drivers
5. Install GPU driver
6. Install sound card driver

* 5 and 6 can also be installed in reverse order.

 

will this work with vista?

 

No it won't.

 

Hence my above post

 

Sorry to revive an old thread (really created for reference material only), but after having quite an unfortunate experience just recently, I decided to expand upon my previous instructions with some extra steps (appropriately labeled "Extra Steps" ). These extra steps are really only for those who have driver troubles which cannot be resolved by following the regular steps, and are in need of more advanced assistance.

 

I really wonder why everybody is using driver cleaner then it's not really a guide is it? I really think many people don't know how to celan drivers / unistall them the right way, if so this tool isn't really needed imho.

If you just unistall the drivers from add/remove, and delete the rigth REG keys yourself thats all that is really needed.

 

Well, regardless of its nomenclature, I've found that the above method (at least the regular steps) result in quite a clean PC + peace of mind, so despite Driver Cleaner's questionable significance, the method works and that's all that matters. DC Pro has never caused problems for me, and I'm sure the same goes for many others.

Uninstalling drivers thoroughly is what this is all about. Whether or not a method is "correct" is dependent upon the observer.

True, and that's exactly why I expanded upon the guide today. I'm still going to keep Driver Cleaner as a recommendation though, because while one can do the exact same things as the program does, only manually, many users would feel intimidated going into the registry and deleting something. That's why Driver Cleaner is so useful; it's no magical program that somehow finds and deletes entries that nobody can manually by any means, but it is a time-saver (and besides, where is it said that one can't perform the process with Driver Cleaner first, and then delete everything left behind by it manually?). Whether or not the inf deletion is necessary can also be questioned, but what is certain is that my problem went away after I cleaned out the inf(s) and uninstalled my display adapter from Device Manager, hence why I will recommend this method to anyone who needs a clean driver installation.

 

good job, man

 

u have done a good job there my friend

 

i'm not questioning your guide, it's just it's to many step's imho you can just write 1 simple btach script to do all the above and let users download it and run it in safemode and that's it