Best way of fully removing Cat 3.4 drivers?

[brigden]

I want to install the new Cat 3.6 drivers, but I want to make sure I remove every trace of the old drivers before I install the new ones. Short of a reformat, what is the best method of removing old drivers?

Cheers.

 

[CotswoldCS]

Why do you need to remove the old drivers. Can you not just install the new drivers over the top? Can someone explain this to me?

If you were to install the new drivers and then remove the video card in Device Manager, would it not redetect the card at next restart and load the most recent driver files?????

 

[Mem]

Use Driver Cleaner 1.9 ,follow the instructions in the readme file once you unzipp the program.

 

[Maggotry]

ATI (as well as nvidia) recommends you uninstall your current drivers before installing the new drivers. Just use the add/remove software from the control panel. With ATI, be sure to remove the driver AND their control panel. You do not remove the video card from the device manager.

Reformatting is absolutely not necessary!

 

[brigden]

Won't uninstalling the drivers from Add/Remove Programs still leave elements in the registry?

 

[Maggotry]

Originally posted by: brigden
Won't uninstalling the drivers from Add/Remove Programs still leave elements in the registry?

So what if it does?

 

[XBoxLPU]

I have never had any problems with removing ATI drivers and cp in add/remove. Re-starting and installing new drivers, cp and restarting.

 

[corkyg]

I go with Maggotry. Whenever I update my ATI drivers, I just do what ATI suggests - use Add/Remove. Remnants in the registry are easily scrubbed by NSW 2003 WinDoctor after the dust settles. Reformat? No new driver is worth all that hassle and nonsense.

OK -I just did the nasty. Everything was working perfectly with 3.4, so why not. I downloaded the ATI 3.6 bundle. I used Add/Remove to get rid of both Radeon drivers and Control Panel. Reboot. XP found new hardware, etc., and we were clean. On trying to install 3.6 - I get a warning - gotta have DirectX 9! Oh, oh!

So, I cancelled out and went to WinUpdate - got two critical security patches and DX9 installed - reboot. Looking clean still - so now I run the ATI installer which takes care of both drivers and control panel. Another reboot, and all is cool. Even my custom settings were restored and we are good to go. Ran WinDoctor and there was one registry entry that needed a fix.

Conclusion? No need at all to reformat and engage in unnecessary complications to life. 🙂

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: XBoxLPU
I have never had any problems with removing ATI drivers and cp in add/remove. Re-starting and installing new drivers, cp and restarting.

Yup, did that some 8+ times(since about the Cat 2.3s), not a single problem yet.

 

[Ionizer86]

Sysrestore tends to clean up very well too...but if you installed the cat 3.4's a while ago, all the other stuff tends to get cleaned too 😉

 

[HeinekinMan]

I use to use the following sequence of events: uninstall the display driver and the ATI Control Panel using Add/Remove Programs, reboot, cancel out any Hardware Wizard/PnP detection dialogs during the reboot, install the latest WDM capture drivers, NO REBOOT, install the latest Catalyst display driver, REBOOT, then finish with installing the ATI Control Panel followed by a final reboot. Never had any problem with this method on Win2K.

However, if you have a broadband connection, ATI is now providing an "all-in-one" shot at the download. It's about 16 MB in size and consists of the Cat 3.6 display driver, the WDM capture drivers, and the ATI Control Panel.

I just downloaded this 16 MB executable, doubleclicked on it to install EVERYTHING (WITHOUT uninstalling anything; this was a first for me!), rebooted when prompted, and everything came up fine. I hope this is how future updates go because it's a lot less of a hassle. I've been testing out all of the functions and everything still works (using MMC8.5 on an AIW 9000 Pro).

The only anomaly that I see (this is an issue that I always go through whenever I update the ATI Control Panel for some reason) is when you rightclick the ATI Control Panel (system tray icon), the ATI Programs folder containing *short cuts* to the ATI MMC apps: TV player, DVD player, Library, etc. is gone. No big deal because this can be easily fixed by editing the registry (the Icon.reg and IconTA.reg keys seem to disappear during the uninstall/install of the ATI Control Panel). I keep backups of these keys and append them to my registry once I'm finished with the updates...

Using an AIW 9000 Pro (MMC 8.5)