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Do you deep clean the old video driver before installing the new one?

Do you deep clean the old video driver before installing the new one?

  • YES

    Votes: 18 36.7%

  • NO

    Votes: 29 59.2%

  • What's a video driver??

    Votes: 2 4.1%
  • Total voters
    49
qubit

qubit

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Jeffredo said:
That makes no sense. The drivers don't "realize" anything. They have a set install protocol and install the files and registry entries their instructed to. If the files or entries exist, they overwrite them. If they don't exist they install/write them. That's it. That's why cleaning probably doesn't help. The driver installation has to do what its instructed to do, whether its installing on a clean slate or overwriting existing files or entries. But a safe mode cleaning certainly isn't going to hurt.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that kind of perfect install isn't entirely true. Thoroughly clearing out the old driver can help with problems. My driver detox routine in post 1 cleared up the problem of the disappearing catalyst icon in the system tray. Nothing I did before that helped.
 
Bundy

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I have only ever installed drivers over the top of the previous. It has always worked perfectly so I can't see the need to run any driver cleaners. My opinion is that this is the best way to do it because thats the way Nvidia set the drivers up.
 
ShiBDiB

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uninstalling old ones is a waste of time.
 
qubit

qubit

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Bundy said:
I have only ever installed drivers over the top of the previous. It has always worked perfectly so I can't see the need to run any driver cleaners. My opinion is that this is the best way to do it because thats the way Nvidia set the drivers up.
Click to expand...

This is the way I do it too and have no problems. Both nvidia & ati's installation instructions used to advise uninstalling the previous driver first. However, having just checked now, I see that it's no longer the case, which is good.
 
Error 404

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Usually I do uninstall then install new ones, moving from nVidia to ATI I did a deep clean (and cleaned up the registry as well), which seems to have worked fine so far.
I've never run into any troubles.
 
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Jeffredo said:
That makes no sense. The drivers don't "realize" anything. They have a set install protocol and install the files and registry entries they're instructed to. If the files or entries exist, they overwrite them. If they don't exist they install/write them. That's it. That's why cleaning probably doesn't help. The driver installation has to do what its instructed to do, whether its installing on a clean slate or overwriting existing files or entries. But a safe mode cleaning certainly isn't going to hurt.
Click to expand...

if a registry setting says "file is located here" and the file isnt there, you will have problems.

if you run a cleaner that removes the file but not the registry setting, when you innstall the new drivers they could see the presence of the registry file and try and do an update instead of an install, or maybe not install that file altogether if they think the same version is already there.

I dare you to go randomly delete files from a driver or program, and see how it likes you. these cleaners are often very outdated, so as new things are added and new files/features put in - things will change and they wont know about it.
 
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