Uninstalling\Installing ATi drivers properly

I know people here have heard or seen many different ways on how to uninstall and install their driver sets for our ATi vga cards, but I am going to make an easy guide on the proper way to do this with drivercleaner and I hope this helps anyone out there looking to do it right. Too start us off, we are going to need the program Drivercleaner which can be found at www.drivercleaner.net. Drivercleaner has 2 versions, the Professional and the Platinum series. The first one being free and second one being purchased, now the difference between the two is that the Platinum has greater support, service packs, and has a Live update which you'll recieve files and filters quite frequently and for the amount of times you'll use this great program, it is defiently worth the money.

1. The first most important thing to do is, if you have any overclocking utility/program installed on your computer you want to make sure that you set it too their orginal bios defaults before proceeding to uninstall or install your vga drivers, once you've done this then we'll proceed to the next step which is the actual removal of the drivers and software.

2. Go to Control Panel, then too Add or Remove Programs and uninstall in this specific order. First you want too uninstall the ATi Display Driver, then next you want too uninstall the ATi Catalyst Control Centre\Control Panel, and last you'll want to uninstall the ATi Software Uninstall Utility, now after each uninstall do NOT reboot computer until all software\drivers are removed from the control panel and step #3 has been accomplished.

3. Go down to your start menu and click the Run program, type in msconfig and head to your BOOT.INI tab, once there we want to checkmark the box /SAFEBOOT. Then hit Apply then Ok, then you can restart your system. Now there is another way too get into Safemode, which is pressing the F8 key. I prefer the using msconfig, it is much easier then rapidly pushing the F8 button like crazy and crossing your fingers while your computer boots up.

4. Once your computer boots into safemode you will have a wizard popup dialog box saying "System has found new hardware", you will click No for each box until it has finished. (for arguement sake, most ATi cards have 2 display drivers, 1 for primary and the other for secondary)

5. This is were Drivercleaner comes in, now before we begin with the cleaning there is also another option in this program under tools which gives you the choice to clean the driver cab (cab cleaner), it is another great cleaning method but one with which we're not going to go into at this time. Now open up Drivercleaner and hightlight all filters pertaining to your ATi vga card. You can also choose too "select multiple cleaning filters" and mark a check in each box that pertains to your card. (the ones I use are ATI, ATI CCC, ATI HydraVision, ATI Uninstall Utility, and ATI WDM). People with AIW cards will also want too select ATI Remote Wonder and ATI TV Wonder and hit the start button. There is also another selection of "show details" of all files being cleaned which I use because I like to see what's being deleted. I like to run it a second time just for good measure.

6. Once the program has deleted all of the detected ATi vga drivers and software, it is time to head back to the Run program and re-type in msconfig. Now you want to go back too the General tab and put a check in the box named Normal Setup, Click Apply then Ok and it will ask you again to restart and you will proceed to Restart your system.

7. Now that we are back into your operating system, it is time too check that all pertaining ATi files have been permanently deleted from the computer. A great way to do that is too get a program that helps in the removal of registry and hidden files, espically the vga ones. The one I like too use, and which I'm sure some of you here have heard of, is called CCleaner. This program once installed will help in the removal of any files that were left behind.

8. Now that we are done uninstalling your old ATi vga drivers and software properly, it is time too install your new ATi driver set.

I hope you like the guide, and get some use out of it. If anyone else has any input or anything too add, then don't be shy.

Peace, Ðamage™

 

Have been doing this exactly like you said. You should listen to him.

 

Worked for me too, but now i use to jump some step, but it is definitivly the best way to clean your system from the old drivers. Listen to him!

 

I just run the installation of the update version and be done with it. Been using ATI cards for over a dozen years. Rarely, if ever, have any issues, either.

This thread is quite old and so..it's Closed.