My newbie friendly guide for uninstalling/installing video card drivers.

[Colonel C]

Why should I do it?
Uninstalling video card drivers properly and deleting the nessacery registry entries prevents your new drivers conflicting with files left over from the older ones.

For ATi Catalyst users
1. To uninstall your ATi Catalyst drivers (version 4.3 or higher), go to the windows control panel -> add/remove programs and open it. Select the ATi Uninstall utility, then click uninstall and ATi's uninstall utility will remove the drivers for you

2. Reboot your PC (into safe mode if possible, press F8 before Windows starts)

3. Download this driver cleaning utility and install it. Note: A cab clean is recommended first, read the program's 'readme'.

4. Select all the ATi components one by one and clean/uninstall them.

5. Reboot your PC and download the latest ATi Catalyst drivers from ATi

For nVidia users
1. To uninstall your nVidia drivers, go to the windows control panel -> add/remove programs and open it. Select the nVidia detonator then click uninstall and nVidia's uninstall utility will remove the drivers for you.

2. Reboot your PC (into safe mode if possible, press F8 before Windows starts)

3. Download this driver cleaning utility and install it. Note: A cab clean is recommended first, read the program's 'readme'.

4. Select all the nVidia components one by one and uninstall/clean them.

5. Reboot your PC and download the latest nVidia Forceware drivers from nVidia

Edited edit: Posted it in the right forum section, could a mod close this please

 

[bamacre]

I've used newer Nvidia and ATI drivers, and just install over the old ones, except when going from one brand to the other. Never have problems. Maybe I'm lucky?

 

[Schadenfroh]

just follow the readme in driver cleaner