Anyone still use "Driver Cleaner", etc. when installing new drivers...?

[Aquila76]

Yep... I use Phyxion's Driver _____er.

Totally regretting it.

Turns out it wipes some built-in drivers in Windows. Now I can't install Win 7 Service Pack 1 without doing a repair install, or selectively restoring (hit & miss) a bunch of files.

Too lazy to do that, so I'm just going to wait until I get an SSD, and do a total reinstall.

That happened to me too. Allegedly you could reinstall the required (yet unused) drivers, but I never got it to work right. Did a reinstall at my last hardware swap, like you plan to. Never using those types of programs again. Not really any point these days.

 

[Obsoleet]

If I experience problems with a new set of drivers, I usually uninstall them, run driver sweeper and then reinstall the drivers.

+1

Yep... I use Phyxion's Driver _____er.

Totally regretting it.

Turns out it wipes some built-in drivers in Windows. Now I can't install Win 7 Service Pack 1 without doing a repair install, or selectively restoring (hit & miss) a bunch of files.

Too lazy to do that, so I'm just going to wait until I get an SSD, and do a total reinstall.

I use DriverSweeper and it gives you a list of the items it's going to remove before it does the clean. It's glaringly obvious which files are the OS driver files, just don't select those. These programs are good, and powerful but you have to be careful and take some personal responsibility using it.

 

[bononos]

Video drivers have become alot more painless now so sweeper/cleaner SW is usually not necessary. But its worth having it for problems and for other HW which is still problematic like soundcards.

 

[nomadicspirit]

I just had an issue with freezes after installing a card from Nvidia to AMD, used Guru 3D driver sweeper and it cleared up.

 

[NickelPlate]

I don't anymore. I just uninstall using the control panel add/remove applet and then run CCleaner to blow out the nvidia registry stuff.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

This hasn't been a problem for a while now.

In fact I have an Nvidia GTX 580 primary video card with an AMD 5970 installed as a secondary and both have full sets of drivers installed and have exactly zero issues gaming or using GPGPU apps.

 

[MadScientist]

Nvidia drivers have the option for a clean install now.

This!