The following two uninstall guides were submitted by Candyman and Mad_Hattah on the rage3d forums a few months ago. The reason for two different guides is that some people experience problems on reboot with winXP automatically reinstalling ATI drivers. If that is the case with you, then go to second guide (mad_hattah).
from Candyman
Alright...here is my way of deleting and installing ATI drivers running Windows XP (Win200 should be the same too).
1. Go into the Control Panel and under the ADD/REMOVE SOFTWARE icon uninstall the ATI MultiMedia software and/or the ATI DVD software.
2. Uninstall the ATI drivers also found in the Add/Remove section. Once removed, it will prompt you to reboot....do so.
3. When returning to windows, the NEW HARDWARE FOUND wizard will come up and will tell you that it has found a new VGA card and will prompt you for drivers. Hit CANCEL!
4. Now, go to START - SEARCH - FOR FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for all files and folders using the filename ati*.*
This search will normally give you 3 to 4 files found in your c:/windows directory and subdirectories (including the Windows/System directory). Select these files and erase them. Now go to your Recycle Bin and Empty your bin.
5. Next...time to go to your Registry. Go to START -- RUN -- regedit
Here go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SYSTEM -- ControlSet001 -- Control -- Video . Here there should be 4 entries. 3 of them are default Windows XP entries and the 4th one is put in by the ATI drivers. Expand each one by one until you see ATI entries. Once found, erase the entire key.
Now repeat the same step above for the ControlSet002 key and the CurrentControlSet Key. Normally, whenever you erase a key in the ControlSet001, XP automatically deletes it in the CurrentControlSet section too. So if the ATI key is not found in the CurrentControlSet section, don't worry about it.
Once all keys are deleted, proceed to the next step.
6. While still in the registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SOFTWARE section. Here you should find an ATI Technologies key. Select it and delete it. In that same section, look for an Installed Options key. Expand it and there you should find another ATI Technologies key. Select it and erase it.
7. Still in the registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -- Software and there you should find another ATI technologies key. Select it and erase it. Once all this is done, close the registry. the registry is now clean.
8. Close all windows and reboot.
9. When in windows after the reboot the NEW HARDWARE FOUND WIZARD will pop up again. Cancel that. Now find the new ATI drivers that you have downloaded and extracted and run the SETUP file. Once complete, reboot and you are done. You may want to reinstall your ATI MMC software and DVD software if you use them. DONE!
from Mad_hattah - if you experience problems on reboot with winXP automatically reinstalling ATI drivers try this:
1. Go into the Control Panel and under the ADD/REMOVE SOFTWARE icon uninstall the ATI MultiMedia software and/or the ATI DVD software.
2. Uninstall the ATI drivers also found in the Add/Remove section. Once removed, it will prompt you to reboot....select NO.
3. In Device Manager, uninstall the display adapter. Select NO if it asks you to reboot.
4. Search for files called oem*.inf containing ATI Technologies ; you should find a few files named, for example, oem0.inf, oem1.inf. Open them and double check that they acctually contain ATI Technologies in them. Delete them.
note: if windows search comes up with no results go into tools->folder options->view and untick the "hide extensions for known file types" and search again
5. Search for files called oem*.pnf. Delete the ones that have the same file names as the oem*.inf files you deleted in step 4. Example: If you deleted oem2.inf in step 4, now delete oem2.pnf.
6. Reboot.
7. When returning to Windows, the NEW HARDWARE FOUND wizard will come up and will tell you that it has found a new VGA card and will prompt you for drivers. Hit CANCEL!
8. Now, go to START - SEARCH - FOR FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for all files and folders on your windows installation drive using the filename ati*.*
Delete all the files except ones that are located in a .cab file and ones whose path includes a folder called ReinstallBackups (you may not have any of these, don't worry). Now go to your Recycle Bin and Empty your bin.
9. Next...time to go to your Registry. Go to START -- RUN -- regedit
Here go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SYSTEM -- ControlSet001 -- Control -- Video . Here there should be 4 entries. 3 of them are default Windows XP entries and the 4th one is put in by the ATI drivers. Expand each one by one until you see ATI entries. Once found, erase the entire key.
Now repeat the same step above for the ControlSet002 key and the CurrentControlSet Key. Normally, whenever you erase a key in the ControlSet001, XP automatically deletes it in the CurrentControlSet section too. So if the ATI key is not found in the CurrentControlSet section, don't worry about it.
Once all keys are deleted, proceed to the next step.
10. While still in the registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SOFTWARE section. Here you should find an ATI Technologies key. Select it and delete it. In that same section, look for an Installed Options key. Expand it and there you should find another ATI Technologies key. Select it and erase it.
11. Still in the registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -- Software and there you should find another ATI technologies key. Select it and erase it. Once all this is done, close the registry. the registry is now clean.
12. Close all windows and reboot.
13. When in windows after the reboot the NEW HARDWARE FOUND WIZARD will pop up again. Cancel that. Now find the new ATI drivers that you have downloaded. Extract them and run the SETUP file (or just run the .exe). Once complete, reboot and you are done. You may want to reinstall your ATI MMC software and DVD software if you use them. You can the latest ones at the ATi website (
http://www.ati.com ). DONE!
Guide to uninstalling ATI drivers in winXP
I included both, check the link at the bottom.
