Comments on: How To Easily Remove Old Drivers from Windows

By: How To Find Unknown Device Drivers By Their Vendor & Device ID - Partytow for all

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:46:21 +0000

[...] How To Easily Remove Old Drivers from Windows (17) [...]

By: Altiris_Grunt

Altiris_Grunt — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:08:30 +0000

Outstanding post, Patriot!

By: Patriot

Patriot — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:00:26 +0000

This method does not actually delete the driver. If you remove a piece of hardware from the Device Manager using this method, the driver will be reinstalled, automatically, if you run the hardware detection scan again.

The only way of which I’m aware to permanently remove the actual driver files is as described here: http://winhlp.com/node/199

By: 7 Common Reasons Why Windows Can Get Unresponsive « Sirlaugh’s Blog

7 Common Reasons Why Windows Can Get Unresponsive « Sirlaugh’s Blog — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:21:21 +0000

[...] Even if the hardware itself is not a problem, the drivers that manage it could be. If you have recently installed a new driver, this is the first suspect to check. Uninstall the driver and see if this helps. Don’t worry, there are easy ways to remove old and faulty drivers from Windows. [...]

By: My Google Reader Shared Items for May 24th through May 29th | Everything EDTECH

Fri, 29 May 2009 22:09:10 +0000

[...] How To Easily Remove Old Drivers from Windows – Clean up is good. I have found that it just takes a little bit of time to keep a PC running optimally. That said, I still prefer my Mac. [...]

By: Ivor the Insufferable

Ivor the Insufferable — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:28:12 +0000

The difficulty I see, in this article and in some others, is that there’s no follow-up. No explanation or link is offered as to what the hidden device names are. I’ve found that there are a few that should be left alone. If I had their names handy from past misadventures, I’d give them here.

MUO needs to provide explanations of what the hidden devices are or might be, what can be removed, what’s best left alone.

Also, regarding another article, an explanation needs to be given on the process of rsstoring drivers backed up with DriverBackup. Every time I’ve seen this program recommended, no one, not the reviewer or any commenters, had any insights on how to restore these “backed up” drivers, nor any potential problems that might arise.

In short, please explain things more indepth and follow through on advice given here at MUO. As in the example given, if you’re going to talk about how to use a program to back up drivers, talk further about how to restore said drivers.

By: Art_Teac

Art_Teac — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:55:50 +0000

Umm, wouldn’t you achieve the same result if you reboot XP in Safe Mode, go to Device Manager and delete these orphan drivers?

By: Ver y desinstalar controladores de dispositivos desconectados - La Cueva de los Cl�sicos

Wed, 20 May 2009 18:48:17 +0000

[...] utilizarlos podes eliminarlos haciendo clic derecho sobre el mismo y seleccionando desinstalar. Fuente __________________ No vives de ensalada! No vives de [...]

By: Como ver y desinstalar los dispositivos de hardware que ya no están en tu PC | Bitelia

Wed, 20 May 2009 09:00:58 +0000

[...] Makeuseof Algunas anotaciones relacionadas: Linux User Hardware Database, Notebook Hardware Control, MemTest [...]

By: Saikat

Saikat — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:08:46 +0000

Let me know if there’s another way to do a straightforward thing as removing old device drivers. Then I will willingly agree that I “stole” your “patented” method. I guess according to you, Windows also did not know about this and you were the first one to “discover” it. For your information, this method has been referred to for troubleshooting since the early days of XP. 2007 is pretty late. There’s a Techrepublic post dated 2006. Techniques are regurgitated on the net so that new readers and newbies can benefit from them. And from the 5-6 comments and 17 tweets, I guess it has helped at least someone.

By: Saikat

Saikat — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:50:12 +0000

One of my colleagues was very helpful with this suggestion:
I found a good forum thread about the VPU Recover Error, so I thought I would pass it along to you: http://www.flexbeta.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9316. It basically counsels users to reinstall the graphics card driver, check the power supply unit, or increase the size of a computer’s virtual memory.
Another offered that your PC could be overheating. You can check both these out. Hope it’s a help.

By: U SUCK

U SUCK — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:30:00 +0000

Way to steal a post buddy. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/remove-old-drivers-after-upgrading-to-new-hardware/ < “This article was written on 08/1/07″

By: Saikat

Saikat — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:25:56 +0000

Hi,
Your query falls a bit outside my area of “expertise”. And I haven’t faced a similar problem myself…I am more into Halo and Age of Empires.What I will do is forward your query to our writers network. We have some guys with pretty high geeky quotients out there…let’s see if they can come up with somehthing.

By: Bonemonster

Bonemonster — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:39:08 +0000

Thanks for putting this up, it has helped quite a bit. I do still have a question or a few. What is the most likely cause of GPU crashes, even after I have uninstalled all old drivers? I have 3 seperate GPU’s I can use: Nvidia 8400GS by XFX, ATI Radeon 3650HD by Visiontek and the onboard video )noe disabled) by Nvidia. No matter which option I choose games, such as Guild Wars or WoW, will eventually hang, crash, CTD or implode windows. This problem ONLYhappens when running 3D applications such as games. I thought it might be drivers but now I am not so sure. Also, how in the hell do I get a fix for the VPU Recover Error on the ATI card, not even Visiontek knows…

By: Hezee

Hezee — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:18:18 +0000

thanks – it helped bigtime!

By: Saikat

Saikat — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:44:57 +0000

The 'Yellow Question Mark'/Unknown device could be because of various reasons...not necessarily a bad driver. Let me direct you to this detailed Microsoft Support article which explains it.

By: Regine

Regine — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:14:29 +0000

Thanks.

By: Hezee

Hezee — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:48:44 +0000

what about unknown devices (yellow question-mark) is it ok to remove them as well?

thank you!