Friday

How to properly reinstall your video drivers

Filed under PC

Reinstalling your video drivers isn’t a difficult process but done properly, there is a bit more to it than downloading the new ones and clicking install. Here’s how I go about it, and it ensures a clean trouble free install every time**.

First off download everything you’ll need. Namely the new driver set you want to install, and either Driver Cleaner Pro (shareware) or Driver Sweeper (freeware). Install whichever you prefer, and make sure there is a shortcut to it on your desktop. Also be sure to put the .EXE for your new drivers on your desktop also,  for easy findability later on. Now, let’s do it like the Backstreet Boys…  step-by-step. (How’s that for being cool?)

1. Uninstall current drivers – Either through Add/Remove Programs, CCleaner (my choice) or an Uninstall shortcut in your start menu.
2. Reboot into safe mode – This is where you’re going to clean up the city, to put it in Crackdown terms.
3. Run Driver Cleaner/Sweeper – Once in safe mode, run Driver Cleaner Pro or Driver Sweeper (whichever you picked) and have it clean up all mention of your video card/drivers from your system. IE- Select nVidia or ATI and let it do it’s thing. It’s “thing” involves cleaning the registry of all previous driver references, and your hard drive of related temp files, INF files and the like.
4. Reboot into “normal” mode – Yes “normal” mode, for lack of a better term. Once rebooted out of safe mode you’ll have a clean, fresh system as far as video drivers go. You’ve already uninstalled your current video card drivers, and Cleaner/Sweeper will have removed any residual traces of them. As the system starts this time, the OS may detect your VGA adapter and ask if you want to find drivers for it. Click cancel, cancel, cancel as needed and tell it to bugger off.
5. Install new drivers - Once the OS has decided to leave you alone, you’ll be looking at a big huge 800×600 display in glorious 256 colours. This would be standard VGA and some of you (myself included) might even remember gaming this way. At this point, kill your virus scanner. Shut it down, pause it or just make it go away until your next reboot. We’re all about removing any possibility of problems  during this process and you don’t need a virus scanner at the moment. With that done, it’s now time to do what most people do as a first step, and that’s install your new drivers. Double click the .EXE  you downloaded earlier and say yes, yes, yes as needed and…
6. Reboot yet again – Last time, seriously. Once the new drivers are installed reboot the system one final time whether it asks you to or not. I know for a fact the newer nVidia drivers don’t require a reboot, but being savvy computer users we do. Savvy?

That’s it, you’re done. Hopefully the new drivers you chose will solve any problems they were supposed to such as improve framerates, stability or making your teeth whiter. Whatever. If they don’t deliver as promised, at least you can be secure in the knowledge that it’s not a screwed up install causing the problem.

** Many of you are going to laugh at all this, saying “I’ve always just downloaded the newest drivers and installed them… and I’ve never had a problem”. I used to be among you, but I found out the hard way not long ago that it pays to do this uninstall/reinstall properly (as above). You might just do a straight uninstall/reinstall (or *gasp* install the new ones straight over the old ones) a hundred times in a row without a problem, but eventually it is going to bite you in the ass and when that happens you won’t know if the new drivers themselves are causing your issues, or if you’ve simply got a screwed up install. There’s enough that can go wrong in PC gaming as it is, so why give it another chance to screw up when you don’t need to?