Do you need to use a Driver Cleaner when changing Nvidia drivers

[9nines]

I just uninstalled 177.39 and installed 177.41. After using 177.41 a while it seem things went in out of screen so I uninstalled 177.41 and reinstalled 177.39.

When making driver changes, do you need to use a driver cleaner or is it not needed? If needed, any free ones?

 

[God Mode]

Ive never had a problem with just installing newer or older drivers over the existing ones for nvidia cards. YMMV.

 

[9nines]

Thanks. I figured it was not neccessary.

 

[taltamir]

you only need driver cleaner when things go horribly wrong and you don't want to reformat.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: taltamir
you only need driver cleaner when things go horribly wrong and you don't want to reformat.

Not true. You can have minor problems as well, like stuttering/freezing for a second, etc, that can be solved by cleaning out old drivers. I know from experience.

 

[CP5670]

I only use the driver sweeper program when switching between AMD and Nvidia drivers. Otherwise, I just install on top of the old one. Never had any trouble that way.

 

[Sylvanas]

I use driver cleaner every time I change any drivers for anything....never had a problem- will continue to do so. It is always best to properly clean your drivers than leave traces of older ones which can cause conflicts and problems.

 

[DarkRogue]

I would tend to think completely uninstalling drivers and using driver cleaner before installing or updating it would be the safest approach, as it would essentially be a 'fresh install' every time.. Of course, this is very annoying to do and a large hassle (IMO) which is why I'm still using 169.x.. I'll update one of these days..

 

[spittledip]

The thing is, it is best to clean out your registry and file system anyway, so it is always a good practice.

 

[Cutthroat]

I used to go through the hassle of uninstalling the old drivers, using driver sweeper and then reinstalling. Then a few months ago my 8800GTX decided not to work correctly with the VGA driver, and would refuse to install new drivers. The only way I could update the drivers was by installing on top of the old ones. Since then I haven't had any problems, I've installed at least a dozen revisions since then. I've even looked for stray old files and never found any. This way is much easier, I won't uninstall old drivers anymore unless I run into problems.

 

[Keysplayr]

It's generally a good idea to uninstall old Nvidia drivers from the control panel before installing a newer driver. Only if you experience problems such as freezes, or are noticing much poorer performance than you "should" be getting, should you consider running a driver cleaning program such as Driver Cleaner/ Driver Sweeper, etc.

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
It's generally a good idea to uninstall old Nvidia drivers from the control panel before installing a newer driver. Only if you experience problems such as freezes, or are noticing much poorer performance than you "should" be getting, should you consider running a driver cleaning program such as Driver Cleaner/ Driver Sweeper, etc.

I fully agree...

 

[LOUISSSSS]

for the past 2-3 years i've always uninstalled in control panel, then ran driver cleaner in safe mode, then ran CCleaner.

then rebot to windows normally and install new drivers. takes a while but i like to play it safe and not corrupt my OS