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How to uninstall AMD, nVidia, Intel video driver - clean and complete!

User question

Greetings!

Tell me how you can remove video drivers from Windows if they are not displayed in the installation and removal of programs (in the control panel). The fact is that I want to install newer drivers, but during installation an error pops up that the driver is already there. What can be done?

Advance ATP.

Dmitry, Kemerovo

Good day.

Quite a popular problem ... In fact, if you do not find an application (including the driver) in the Add / Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel, this does not mean at all that it is not in the system 👀!

In addition, it also happens that when installing a new driver, no errors appear and everything seems to be going well - but you will continue to use the same old driver. That is why, in many cases, it is always recommended to remove the old driver completely from the system, and then install the new one.

This is what we will do now ...

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Ways to remove the video card driver from the system

The methods suggested below are universal: i.e. suitable for any video drivers - AMD (Ati Radeon), nVidia (GeForce), Intel. The same methods will work in all Windows popular today: XP, 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits).

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👉 Option 1

Using the DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) utility

DDU

Official website: //www.wagnardsoft.com/

This is a specialized utility that completely and completely removes any video driver from the system, be it from AMD, nVidia or Intel.

Moreover, I want to note right away that not only the driver itself is deleted, but also information about it from the registry (keys, parameters), folders, files, etc. The program works even in cases when Windows either does not "see" the driver, or just throws an error and cannot delete it.

DDU can also be used to check if everything was removed if you followed the standard uninstall procedure.

👉Note!

Before using the DDU utility, I recommend creating a restore point in Windows (just in case) - //ocomp.info/vosstanovlenie-windows-10.html#i

The utility files are distributed in an archive. After downloading the utility, you need to unpack the archive and run the executable file - Display Driver Uninstaller (see screenshot below).

I want to draw your attention to the fact that the utility can run for a long time - 20-30 seconds, apparently at startup it analyzes the system and looks for installed drivers.

Extracted files from archive

Next, DDU will prompt you to select a launch mode, for example, "Normal mode" ... Ideally, of course, you need to reboot the system in safe mode and remove the driver from it. Nevertheless, I will note right away that in most cases everything works in normal ...

👉 Note!

Just in case, I'll leave a link to my article on how to enter Safe Mode (just in case).

Utility launch mode

Actually, when the utility is launched, you need to perform only two steps:

  1. select a video driver: AMD or nVidia (in most cases, DDU detects it automatically, and yet ...). See "1" in the screenshot below;
  2. select delete mode - recommended "Delete and reboot" ... In general, nothing more is required from you - the utility will delete and clean everything automatically!

Uninstall and reboot / driver uninstall option

This method is one of the simplest and most effective. I want to note once again that all traces will be completely removed from the system and any new driver can be easily installed (without any notifications and warnings that you already have some kind of driver in the system).

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👉 Option 2

Through the installation and removal of programs

I want to note that in many cases it is not at all necessary to download any utilities (the same DDU) to uninstall a driver - just open 👉 the control panel and follow the link "Removing a program" .

Removing programs

Next, you will be presented with a list with 99% of the programs installed on your system. This includes a driver for a video card, a sound card, etc. Of course, there will not be a complete list of drivers here, and nevertheless ...

To uninstall - just find the driver you need in the list, select it and click the button "Change" ... If everything is in order with the installer and the driver itself, as a rule, there are no problems and everything is deleted normally (nothing else needs to be done!).

Programs and Features - Windows 7

If the driver is not in the list of installed programs, try to find and remove it through the device manager, or using the special. utilities (see below 👇).

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👉 Option 3

Via device manager

The Device Manager displays all drivers and all devices available on your system (even those devices for which there is no driver are displayed as unknown).

To open the device manager: press the Win + R key combination, then enter the command devmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Note! The device manager can also be opened through the control panel. Simply, the above method is universal, and allows you to open this manager in all popular versions of Windows: XP, 7, 8, 10.

Launching Device Manager - devmgmt.msc

Next, you need to open the tab "Video adapters" and double-click the left mouse button on the required adapter (if you have 2 of them, like mine).

You can just open properties the required adapter - to do this, right-click and select the required one from the menu.

Selecting and Viewing the Properties of a Video Adapter

In the newly opened properties go to tab "Driver" : here you can get information about the driver - vendor, development date, driver version, signature, etc. By the way, it is useful to compare the version of the driver that you want to install with what is already in the system.

To remove it - click the button of the same name at the bottom of the window (see screenshot below).

Viewing driver information, uninstalling

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👉 Option 4

With the help of universal spec. utilities to remove any drivers

There are actually a lot of such utilities:Treexy Driver Fusion, Driver Sweeper, Driver Cleaner and so on. In addition, most programs designed to automatically search for and update drivers can also remove and archive an unwanted driver.

👉 To help! 

In general, I have one big article on my blog about programs for working with drivers.

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Driver sweeper

Developer site: //phyxion.net/

Soft-portal: //www.softportal.com/software-18719-driver-sweeper.html

A simple and reliable utility that specializes in one of its main tasks - removing any drivers from the system completely and as cleanly as possible!

Driver Sweeper will even check the system registry for various remaining "tails", and if they are found, they will also be deleted! By the way, the program makes a backup copy of the drivers before working with them - I do not advise you to give up now!

Generally, using the utility is quite simple, I see no reason to write about it separately (see the screen below: one window in which you can see a list of the drivers found, then select those that are no longer needed and clear the system from them).

Found drivers, including NVIDIA

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PS: to 100% remove any video driver from the system - you can reinstall Windows😎.

That's all for now ...

All the best!

👋

First publication: 15.08.2017

Correction: 01/30/2020

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