Uninstalling A Driver...compeltely

[Tokar]

Im trying to uninstall the driver for a piece of hardware on my laptop. The same one mentioned in my other thread http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=1139994, the 3com 3c420.

If i try the uninstall within normal windows, i get a bluescreen with an error on teh NDIS.sys file.

If i try the uninstall in Safe Mode without networking, it uninstalls fine...BUT if i unplug the thing and plug it back in, it auto installs because the driver still seems to exist on the system.

How do i COMPLETELY uninstall the driver such that any subsequent timesi plug it in it will give me that crap-ass wizard for driver install?



Note: As this may be a general hardware related issue, its a piece of networking hardware which is giving me problems.

 

[kursplat]

well.... you could go into the device manager and see the details of all the drivers used by that device . then remove it as you have already and before reconnecting it delete all the files you found previously.
hope something else isn't using them
good luck

 

[VictorLazlo]

What OS are you using? There is an option in XP and 2k to show hidden devices in computer management. There may be other instances of the device that are hidden. I've had similar problems in the past, and deleting drivers (and hidden drivers) from device manager doesn't erase window's "memory" of these devices, because the driver files are still on your harddrive. You might try manually deleting the driver files, but I've never done this myself.

Here is a tweakxp article that might be useful:
http://www.tweakxp.com/display.aspx?id=1249

Also there is a "show hidden devices" environment variable but I don't remember what it is. If anyone does, please post.

 

[Tokar]

i was able to get it...

after finding out what driver .sys file it was using in the hardware profiles, i deleted that file in the folder it sad it was in c:\windows\system32\drivers
then i deleted the INF installs in c:\windows\inf...

and now it does what i wanted it to do...no more auto installs...