Driverheaven - Driver Cleaner 0.5.3

**Spike** · Jan 17, 2003, 12:20 PM

Ok guys,

Here is the new version from Driver Cleaner. It contains fixes and improvements. For full details on what is changed since 0.5.1 see the help file by Other >> Version.

Now it has good support for nVidia and ATI drivers. This includes the Omega driver sets.

To install this version uninstall the older version first.

You can download the new version here.

Spike

Trik · Jan 17, 2003, 07:44 PM

ATI users have always had a use for an app like this.

Nvidia users have benefited from earlier Driver Cleaners and Det Destroyer for quite some time.

**Spike** · Jan 18, 2003, 01:21 PM

Thanx i am glad you like it. I keep improving it. Hope more people will give feedback.

Spike

shuki · Jan 19, 2003, 12:07 PM

in my experience with winXP sp1, you can not cancel out of winXP auto detecting/installing wizard upon reboot after removing drivers via add/remove proggys. In order to cancel out of auto detect wizard (which you need to be able to do in order to get a clean driver install) you must first delete the inf's and pnf's. this is a one time only procedure So....

ATI:
1. unplug nic card or modem from net (physically unplug)
2. create system restore point (just to be safe)
3. remove ATI driver from add/remove programs then remove CP from add/remove programs
4. reboot into safe mode (F8 during boot up)
5. if you've never deleted the ATI inf files from windows (ie search ati*.* and delete) or if you're connected to the net, you'll not be able to cancel out of windows automatically finding new device and installing drivers for it. You must first get to the place they you can cancel out of windows installing drivers for you... so at this point, let winXP auto install drivers. If you can cancel out of wizard then skip the rest of this junk and run that cleaner utility above! if you can NOT cancel wizard then:
6. go to device mgr->display adapter->uninstall and/or remove ATI display adapter but do not reboot
7. Open windows explorer and delete c:\ATI and c:\program files\ATI
8. start->run->search c:\windows for ati*.* and delete all (though not any bookmarks or other ATI files that you have and want to keep

. **Be sure your search includes hidden files and subfolders too**
9. empty recycle bin and reboot
10. you should now be back into windows and if you're unplugged from the net and have searched and fully deleted (emptied recycle bin) ATI*.* files, you should now be able to cancel out of windows automatically installing your video card drivers. Just cancel out and run this cleaner program now. if you still can not cancel out, repeat steps 4-9.

nvidia
1. unplug nic card or modem from net (physically unplug)
2. create system restore point just to be safe
3. remove nvidia from add/remove programs
4. reboot into safe mode (F8 during boot up)
5. On reboot into safe mode winXP SP1 will auto detect and install drivers. Just let it do its thing. If you can cancel out of the auto install hardware wizard then skip the rest of this crap and run the above cleaner utility now! If you can NOT cancel out of auto detect wizard then...
6. navigate to device mgr->display adapters->highlight nvidia and click uninstall or remove but don't reboot
7. search c: for nvidia*.* and delete all folders and files (with exception to ie folders or something like that.)
8. now navigate to c:\windows\inf by default folder is hidden so you need to go to tools->folder options->view->show hidden files and folders. You need to go to the NV*.inf and PNF files. Delete each one. Both inf and matching PNF. get all NV. To be sure they're nvidia you can open inf with notepad and see mfgr as nvidia. Maybe around 5~6 inf's and matching PNF's.
9. empty recycle bin and reboot
10. you should now be back into windows and if you're unplugged from the net and have deleted the NV INF and PNF files, you should now be able to cancel out of windows automatically installing your video card drivers. Just cancel out and run the above cleaner utility. If you still can not cancel out, repeat steps

**note - utility program does not delete c:\ATI or c:\program files\ATI nor c:\nvidia. If you want those gone too (which I do) then you have to manually delete them. Just do that before/after running cleaner but before reboot after cleaner.

**Spike** · Jan 19, 2003, 12:36 PM

Ok i will add a routine to delete those directories on the drive.

About that that you can't stop that hardware wizard in sp1 is probally, because there are older inf files. I can stop it in xp pro with sp1, but thanx for that steps i will put something like that in the next files so it is more clear to people.

shuki · Jan 19, 2003, 01:07 PM

I have xp pro too. once I installed sp1, I could no longer cancel out of wizard until I manually deleted the inf's that sp1 adds to windows\inf. Once I deleted them one time, I never had to manually do it again... upon reboot I can now cancel out every time. So not sure about putting them in for every user... or even whats involved in putting those commands in but it just needs to be done once... but thanks! for your A+ efforts in this uninstaller proggy spike!!!

**Spike** · Jan 19, 2003, 04:04 PM

I will include something like a readme file for first time usage and add your one time only procedure to it if that is ok?

That directory delete function is now programmed in i need to test it more and it will be in the next release. Thanx for telling me this, because i don't have any of those dirs so didn't think of that.

I wish there were more people like you that would give feedback.

Thanx again

Spike

shuki · Jan 19, 2003, 06:41 PM

feel free to include anything I may contribute

just glad to try and help out a bit on your wonderful project!

krang · Jan 20, 2003, 01:43 PM

This prog definately saves some time. Much better than manually going through everything. Great job!

**Spike** · Jan 20, 2003, 05:28 PM

Thanx krang, that is why i wrote the program to make it easy for people and to make sure all old driver traces are deleted. I keep improving it to make it better and easier.

Again thanx for your feedback

Spike

krang · Jan 22, 2003, 05:19 PM

Spike, Just to let you know I sent you a PM on version 60. I think you nailed this next release.