Faulty device drivers

Hi. I use driver max to keep my device drivers always updated. I was suggested to install artista virtual display driver eventhough I use nvidia. It turns out upon installation and restarting, windows vista automatically disabled it. I tried to rollback but not possible. Then I simply uninstalled from device manager 5 instances of the driver with an exclamation point next to it. I reboot and I get 5 instances of unknown device driver. I have no idea if certain files(perhaps dll), registry keys, etc remain to prevent total cleansing.

 

I still have NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M which is the latest driver my laptop installed correctly. It was drivermax that suggested I download and install it. So I guess I now have multiple display adapter drivers installed on my system after artista virtual display refuses to uninstall. Upon researching that company its german that specialises for different computers. And they have no uninstall software either. Man this sucks! Is there a device driver uninstalling software like revo or something else? My computer works ok, but I would still like to remove traces of that driver package if possible.

 

I still have the latest driver version installed.....NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M. The problem is I also have artista virtual display partially uninstalled and disabled, which I would like completly removed somehow so I dont get "unknown driver" in device manager. Also I though driver max was credible, they have lots of positive feedback and it seems popular software? Yeah I should have done a restore job before installing but I have installed like 15 new drivers from the generic microsoft to the manufacturer recomended with no hickups. This was my first real problem.

 

nikos1974...

This is a little bit of an ordeal, but you may want to try it. First Google and download Comodo Programs Manager 1.2 (doesn't come bundled with Geek Buddy unlike newer versions). Install the program and then reinstall the bad driver, assuming you can find it again. Open CPM and find the driver and run a complete uninstall. Hopefully, this will remove all of the files of the program. Careful at the end of the removal. CPM will stop after the standard program removal ends and then ask you if you want to complete the program removal. Just click yes, and it will find and show the registry entries to be removed. Then just choose to remove them.

You still may have to reinstall your NVS driver, which you can do right over the top of the existing installation. It could be broken, and the reinstall might fix it. There could also be other damage to Windows, which you can check after all the above with an sfc /verifyonly at the command prompt. This won't make changes, but it will post to the cbs log problems it finds.

If this doesn't solve your problem, you could download and install Revo and then reinstall the bad driver. It won't record the installation like CPM, but it might see it and then find the parts you need found.

Worst comes to worst, there is an uninstaller that will create a log of an installation. It's called zSoft Uninstaller. More here:

http://dottech.org/3138/how-to-trac...-your-computer-during-a-program-installation/

I haven't ever installed zSoft, so I don't know if it's a clean installation, but the information in the link seems positive enough. Anyway, if you try this, you just install the zSoft program and then take a snapshot of the system. Then you use zSoft to install the bad driver again so you can get a log of all of its files. From that point you might just be able to use Windows search to find them all and delete them, depending on how many there are...

 

Thank you for the suggestions. At this point I am goint to move slowely, patiently and methodically. I can't afford to screw up my window files anymore. It is not something that needs to be done immediately anyway. Could take weeks or months to resolve then so be it. At least my computer functions ok other than this botched driver install and uninstall.

 

My nvidia driver seems to function pretty good. No black screens, no problems with loading windows, screensaver works great, no random error message, etc. Just five instances of the same botched driver falied install. No big deal. I will work it out eventually.

 

You might be able to find it using Autoruns. I have had problems in the past updating drivers unnecessarily. Classic example of if it ain't broke ...

 

I am suprised they suggested that few drivers as necessary when you installed each of those packages. Before I installed drivermax I had only installed less than 5 manufacturer drivers for various peripheral devices. Everything else was run by generic microsoft drivers which are ok but not great. Upon doing the initial scan I was given 30 outdated drivers that needed updating. I did a few each day since I used the free version. Out of the 30 necessary though about 50% were unique drivers and the other installations just repeat instances of the same device driver. So about 15 unique drivers needed installation.

Now I noticed that some of the drivers are manufacturer compatible but virtually all of them as far as I can remember are microsoft certified. In any case I had no problem with the manufacturer compatible drivers, although I feel cheated that they tell me I need drivers that are not originals.

I have two issues with the software, one I was able to correct(they gave me an nvidia driver that was for the wrong computer), and then artista virtual display adapter, which I am working on now.

Best solution is to manually update drivers from the manufacturers website after you know exactly what you need. Very low risk but a bit time consuming. Overall I dont hate driver max, 95% of the drivers got updated with little effort and no troubles.

Thanks for the comparison charts so I can see your point!

 

Just want to second what nikos1974 is saying about DriverMax. First...don't install an unsigned driver...that's for sure. Otherwise, I like the DriverMax backup option for backing up drivers. For me, this is possibly a reason for putting up with the difficulties of the free version (which I admit there are a couple).

If you use DriverMax, make sure you take the time to backup your drivers first (and every time you update them) and then avoid unsigned drivers.

Honestly, at the end of the day, it is true that avoiding driver updates until there is a problem is really just the way to go. Maybe there is a graphics driver with a system tray menu for settings or something, but, generally, they really aren't worth the risk to the system. Go to the manufacturer's site and find the drivers there. It's the way to go...(then use DriverMax to back them up rolleyes)...

 

Innovative Solutions provides a program called advanced uninstaller pro. It really seems like a great package and is free from what I can tell. It has daily health check which has removed 48GB of random ghost files from my computer. Files that windows disk cleaner would never touch. And here is the best part, it does a monitored installation and monitered uninstallation.

You gave me a wonderful idea with Zsoft uninstaller.

 

I am definitely going to remove drivermax and simply update manually from the source if and when I need more drivers in the future. I do plan on keeping advanced uninstaller pro though.

 

nikos1974...

Thanks for this bit of information. I am going to take a look at AU Pro for this cleaning feature and see what it's removing...

I actually used/tested this program back around 2009, and it was a little bit scary in those days. I kind of get a laugh about it now, but AU used to recommend removing the Windows Installer, which I knew was a bad idea. One time, however, I tried it for the sake of science to see what would happen, and, well, it was interesting putting the pieces of Windows XP back together, along with reinstalling about 10 programs so they would work again... :-D I really had the feeling that the developer must have a sense of humor about things after I had a chance to think about it a little bit, because I really did learn alot about Windows from that experience...not that I would recommend anyone try it (removing Windows Installer)...

 

I run Advanced Uninstaller Free on two 64 bit computers because Revo free doesn't see 64 bit programs. If I fire up Revo and a program isn't listed, I go to my other program to uninstall something.

 

Advanced Uninstaller Pro looks good on first inspection. Two things I noticed...

1. With Comodo Programs Manager, Comodo managed somehow to get around the requirement for selecting that an installation be monitored. I know AU Pro has auto monitoring, but, on the only installation I tried, AU Pro did not auto-record the installation. Also, AU Pro requires that all programs are closed during a monitored installation, while Comodo has come up with a solution for this, too. Really too bad CPM 1.2 (no Geek Buddy) has that stupid runaway process which requires an extra program to disallow. I use Process Lasso to do this, but I use it for other things, anyway, so it's not an extra burden for me.
2. The cleaning feature seems to go after the same things as CCleaner, which is good. However, choices are limited when it comes to what to remove in comparison to CCleaner. To me, Ashampoo WinOptimizer has the best control element for targeted removal on a regular or scheduled basis. WO remembers your choices and you can select what to remove based on a number of groupings (this is done a little better than with CCleaner imo). Also, WO, like CCleaner, does allow you to specify a particular file or folder to remove. WinOptimizer makes scheduling easy, too. The only drawback that makes CCleaner the better cleaner to me is that with CCleaner I can target a folder and then choose to remove all the files or certain ones or even just remove the entire folder. There is even support for wildcards, which is supremely cool for targeting files of a type in a particular folder. This is the feature I can't get around with CCleaner, although startups management is great too with CCleaner. It really finds them all, and it works EVERY time...

Thanks for the heads up on AU Pro. I really like the program enough to say that I don't think there are any phony elements there. If you are good with removing the max that CCleaner would remove every time, AU Pro looks like it will do a similar job. There are alot of features there, too. Not sure how to schedule cleanings or if it's possible.

BTW...when I used Comodo Programs Manager to remove the test program I used to test the auto record of AU Pro, AU Pro did automatically pop up a list of registry entries that could be removed. I checked before I ran CPM, and AU Pro did not record the installation as there was no log even though auto monitoring was enabled. Anyway, before removing the test program with CPM, I had disabled the monitoring feature of AU Pro for the uninstall as a precaution against something weird happening between AU Pro and CPM, so I was surprised to see the pop up. Turns out it is the auto search for remnants feature, which apparently uses the program name to find remnants of whatever program has been uninstalled. Nice, but the only thing is CPM's list of entries for removal included 50 files and keys, while AU Pro reported only two, both of which were in CPMs list of files to remove. Not a very extensive list from that feature of AU Pro when compared to CPM. Just for interest sake, CPM removed somewhere around 400 registry entries for AU Pro. I have seen double that before, but that is alot of registry manipulation...

 

This is what I use
http://www.tucows.com/preview/736611/Advanced-Uninstaller-FREE

I do not use a monitored installation. I use exactly one thing, removal of 64 bit programs.