Driver Cleaner Reduced Vista Premium to Vista Basic

Girasol · Mar 10, 2008, 01:07 PM

I have Windows Vista Premium edition on my HP Pavilion dv9627cl Notebook. I ran the driver cleaner as recommended. Here are the steps that I followed:

1. Went to the control panel and uninstalled all nVidia drivers.
2. Rebooted and pressed F8 for safe mode.
3. Ran Driver Cleaner
4. Rebooted to regular Windows (at this point, I realized that the screen resolution is changed, all the icons are large, etc, but wallpaper is there)
5. Ran driver finder for nVidia driver (it said: none installed; latest driver available ForceWare 169.25)
6. Went to download site, but couldn't find the specified driver (169.25 is only for Windows 64 bit (I have 32 bit), so I installed what was available (174.16 for 32 bit (set up detected operating system not compatible, exited set up); then I tried the 169.12 (same error: "Set up detected that the operating system in use is not Windows Vista 32 bit ????!?!?!?!")
7. I checked my display settings. Sure enough, the Windows Vista Aero option is gone, I can only display in Windows Vista Basic.

What has happened? And, all the icons and every window and everything is so magnified, as if it is still in Safe Mode!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really upset. Please help.

***Zardon*** · Mar 10, 2008, 01:20 PM

ok firstly relax. Driver cleaner hasnt changed your operating system.

What you are seeing is merely the fact you no longer have a full nvidia graphics card driver installed. Your OS isn't "changed", the lack of aero functionality is due to the fact there is no video driver installed. This is also why the resolution is so low and you are seeing everything "big".

Download the latest nvidia driver for your system at Welcome to NVIDIA - World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies then restart your computer.

169.25 for 32 bit vista is here ForceWare Release 169 - then mod the inf from laptop2go if you want newest sets (please be aware you may lose hotkeys).

Right click on "my computer" or whatever you have named the PC. then go to properties. then click "windows experience index". and "update my score".

with the nvidia drivers installed you will now have hardware acceleration and windows will enable aero again.

**Spike** · Mar 10, 2008, 01:26 PM

The problem is that the drivers you download from the nvidia site or from the driverheaven download site are not for notebooks. They don't have the support for that in it so you can only install the drivers from hp.

Also if you uninstalled all nvidia drivers then you also uninstalled the chipset drivers. So goto the HP site and download the nforce chipset drivers and the Geforce drivers and then install the chipset drivers and reboot. Then install the Geforce drivers.

The reason why aero is gone and the icons are big is because there is no display driver installed.

Girasol · Mar 11, 2008, 04:56 PM

Very well, I did that. So, are you saying that basically, drivercleaner is not for notebooks?

mkk · Mar 11, 2008, 05:12 PM

DriverCleaner is fine for notebooks too, it's just that graphics drivers for notebook computers are typically not as easy to find as for regular graphics cards. The regular driver package from the graphics chip manufacturer might not support the notebook chip, as in this case.

***Zardon*** · Mar 11, 2008, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Girasol

Very well, I did that. So, are you saying that basically, drivercleaner is not for notebooks?

Basically from what I have read in this thread, your user abililty is novice so you really should be sticking to the manufacturers drivers from their home site. I don't mean that to sound offensive, just an honest observation.

Girasol · Mar 11, 2008, 09:05 PM

It is better to say, that your driver finder is a novice program since it does not detect that the PC is a notebook. Your program should have a warning to specify that fact.
Now, I would like some help to find the correct display driver, or at least explain what is missing. I have gone to the HP website and downloaded and installed their chipset/video drivers to no avail.

Girasol · Mar 11, 2008, 09:22 PM

Before running the driver cleaner, it had an experience index of 2.6. It now has an index of 1.0. The notebook sales person told me that the experience index does not matter. I tried downloading the 169.25, but it says that it is not compatible with the PC.

**kris23** · Mar 12, 2008, 01:14 AM

DC is really software for those with EXPERIENCE using computers, you obviously never uninstalled VGA drivers on a vista system before. once drivers are installed back, you will gain aero back

and you also never worked with such closed source laptops, manufacturers limit the drivers used to those on their site as to limit problems. mobility modder is what thats built for but since its not for Nvidia cards, its not going to help and you're out of luck.

get the manufacturer's drivers and you will be running fully able again.

**Spike** · Mar 12, 2008, 03:21 AM

Girasol if you read the help file you see that the Driver Version Check only checks the Operating version and the nvidia or Ati, so it does not check if it is a pc or notebook and also not what card is in it, because that would take a lot of time to make a list of all device id's and such. So don't say the program is novice or that there should be a warning because this is also explaind in the help file so it is always best to read that.

nVidia and ATI can't add the notebook support in their drivers, so that is why you should download the latest drivers from the manufacturer site like HP. Did you download the chipset and video driver from the HP site? Did you install the chipset driver first and then reboot and then install the video driver? Also the Index in vista is always at 1.0 when there are drivers updated or removed.

***Zardon*** · Mar 12, 2008, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Girasol

It is better to say, that your driver finder is a novice program since it does not detect that the PC is a notebook. Your program should have a warning to specify that fact.

Actually no. The fact you thought the application had changed your OS when in fact the problem is you now don't have a video card driver installed is the reason I said this. It is hard to help people who blame everything without accepting responsibility for their actions.

What you need to do is install the offical drivers from the manufacturers website. May I ask why you decided to suddenly clean your drivers then go try and install other drivers (which don't have support in the infs) without even researching any of this in the first place?

Tipstaff · Mar 12, 2008, 06:11 AM

As Zardon pointed out, your best bet would be to check out laptopvideo2go. The site specializes in adding support for laptops that run on Nvidia based graphics by supplying a modified inf. Specifically, THIS is the page you want which has the last update by them.

In the first post of that page you will see 3 lisings: Driver, Modded INF, and Quick Install Guide. Download the driver, as well as the modded inf file. Extract the drivers (note that it extracts into a folder within a folder, so you will have to go in a bit to get to the files), and move the modded inf into the same folder making sure that you overwrite the one in there already. If it doesn't ask you about overwriting the file then it's not in the right place. After that just run the setup.exe file, and off you go.

For reference be sure to read the Quick Install Guide as it has a lot of information on what gets done to support laptop graphics, as well has a more detailed installation procedure.