3 Safe Ways to Uninstall/Remove Windows Drivers

When Need to Uninstall Drivers Completely?

• You have weird computer issues that seem related with device drivers
• You just upgraded your device and need to install new driver for it
• Whenever you plug a new device like a pen drive, a USB device, etc. to your system, it will install needed drivers for the device and every time you boot up Windows, drivers will be loaded. So if the device is used only once or twice and you will never use it again, the drivers are so space-consuming and will slow down your startup speed.

How to Uninstall/Remove Device Drivers Completely?

Installing drivers can be done with ease and we know the codes in the driver program acts like a middleman between the hardware devices and operating system. Just like any other software programs, driver program is deeply integrated into OS after installed to ensure perfect and seamless functionality.

Well, it is not a hard task to uninstall driver package from your computer. 3 approaches are demonstrated in the below. They are easy and free.

Approach 1: Using Free Driver Manager and Updater Software DriveTheLife

DriveTheLife, a professional and totally free Windows program designed to update and manage drivers for all Windows users. It allows you to download, install, update, backup, restore and uninstall drivers just with a few clicks. To uninstall drivers, follow the steps below:

1. Download, install and launch DriveTheLife. Official free download location:  www.drivethelife.com
2. Go to Manage Board from the left pane
3. Click Uninstall, then all the drivers that are available to be uninstalled will be displayed in the list

4. Choose the one you need to uninstall and press Uninstall Button. Just one click, you can remove the drivers and its package completely.

Approach 2: Remove Drivers using Device Manager

Device manager is a Control Panel application that lets you manage and update your devices, along with the drivers. It allows you to change settings for the hardware, view properties, identify drivers for each device, install/uninstall/disable/enable/roll back drivers. Let’s start the steps to uninstall drivers:

1. Start > Input Device Manager > Press Enter.
2. Find and click the category of device which you need to uninstall the driver, for instance, the graphics card would be listed under Display Adapters).
3. Right click the problematic device > Uninstall.

4. On the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, click OK.

Approach 3: Uninstall Drivers using the System Uninstaller Program

You can uninstall the drivers from the Uninstaller Program just like any other program.
1. Start > Input Uninstall Program > Press Enter.
2. In the uninstallation window, find the driver you want to uninstall and start the uninstallation process.

After the driver is uninstalled, if you need a new driver for this device, use DriveTheLife to scan your computer which will find the proper drivers and perform the installation with one click.

Top Solutions to “Computer Can’t Connect to WiFi” Issue

Symptom:

I have a Lenovo Ideapad with Windows 8. I connected to the WiFi and it worked fine last night, but now it says it can't connect and the other people with me can connect. I have the password correct so I can't figure out what's wrong. I tried rebooting it. It didn't work.

Laptop or desktop can't connect to WiFi problem exists here and there. Fixes are different for different users. Below I will list what I know that help to fix WiFi connection problem. Please add your fix if it is not in the list. Thanks.

I have Windows 7 in my hand, so the demonstrations are based on Windows 7.

Fix 1: Disable Wireless Adapter and Enable It Again

• Click Start menu.

• Open Control Panel.

• Find Network and Sharing Center.

• Click Change Adapter Settings from the left bar.

• Locate your wireless adapter and right click on it.

• Choose Disable.

• Then click Enable.

Disable Wireless Network Adapter

Fix 2: Renew Your IP Address

Renewing IP address will prevent IP conflicts when your computer and another on the network have the same IP address.

• Open Windows command prompt: Start > Input cmd to search program.
• Release IP address: ipconfig/release > Enter.
• Renew IP address: ipconfig/renew >Enter.
• Exit the command prompt box.

Fix 3: Restart Your Computer and Wireless Router

Fix 4: Update Wireless Card Driver

You have 3 ways to update wireless driver. Smart driver updater Driver Talent is recommended because of its easy steps and quick speed.

In order to have a clean reinstall of the wireless adapter driver, you need to remove/uninstall the original wireless driver. Launch Driver Talent and go to Uninstall section. After this, scan your hardware drivers with Driver Talent. It will detect the missing wireless adapter driver and install it with one click.

Fix 5: Clear Computer Glitches and Change a Wireless Network Card

Due to overheating or old age, computer's network adapter might suffer a sudden failure which results to the network connection interruption. Viruses and worms also may disable or block a computer's network interfaces from functioning properly.

So if there is no way after you contact your internet service provider, try to replace the old wireless network card.

Fix 6: Reset the Winsock Catalog

If you can't connect to the internet and got the message "Limited Connectivity" and "IP4V - No internet access" IPV6 - No internet access", maybe you need to reset the winsock catalog. Do as follows:

1. Run cmd as administrator

• Start >Search cmd >Right Click "Run as administrator" (Ctrl +Shift + Enter)

or

• Start > All Programs >Accessories > Command Prompt >Run as administrator 

Note that if the User Account Control dialog box appears, click "Yes" to allow the change.

2. Input netsh winsock reset, press enter, you will get this dialog box （shown in the below）

3. Restart your computer.

WiFi not working after Windows 10 update? Read this article to get problems resolved.  Top 2 ways to fix no WiFi available on Windows 10 update.

Click for more about can't connect to WiFi on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP

Last updated on 13th May, 2015

10 Methods to Fix Display (NVIDIA) Driver Stopped Responding and Has Recovered Problem

Just as the title implies, this article mainly focus on solving the problem of “Display driver keeps crashing and recovering”. It is obvious that this issue has been a plague for a long time especially on Windows XP, 7 and 8.  How about finding a 100% working method? That is impossible since I noticed that different people solved the problem with different methods. Below I will list the methods I know from others and my own experience.

Method 1. The Most Basic Principle of “Make sure your computer is not overheating”

If so, cool it with a cooler when working.

Method 2. Make Sure Your PC is Not Overclocking

Lower the operating frequency from your graphics card Control Panel. If you are using NVIDIA, right click on your desktop and find the NVIDIA Control Panel, set the operating frequency to a lower level

Method 3. Update Your GPU Driver

Sometimes updating drivers solved the problem easily and quickly. What you need to do is to get your GPU model and update the driver the latest one or suitable one. However, if you don't want to do so much search and download, you can use free driver update and managing software like DriveTheLife which will scan your drivers and alert you with all the drivers in question and repair them in demand.

Update Drivers with DriveTheLife

Method 4. Change the Registry Key to Expand TDR Time

• Go to registry editor (start > run > regedit)
• Navigate yourself to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlGraphicsDrivers (make sure Graphics Drivers is highlighted)
• Right click > New > Dword (32-bit) value > Name it: TdrDelay > double click it > Set it to A (hexadecimal) or 10 (decimal).  If you are using 64bit system, just choose the Dword (64-bit) value

Method 5. Change Power Settings

Control Panel >Power Options >Choose when to turn off the display (on the left of power options window) >Change advanced power settings >PCI EXPRESS: If it is on Maximum power saving, then set it to OFF

Method 6. Change Settings from NVIDIA Control Panel (If you are using NVIDIA graphics card)

• Nvidia Control Panel -> 3D Settings -> Set PhysX configuration -> Select a Physx processor -> choose your graphics card instead of leaving it on auto-select.
• NVIDIA Control Panel, using "Prefer max performance" instead of "Adaptive".

Method 7: Run the Hardware and Devices Toubleshooter

Control panel >Troubleshooting >View all (on the left pane of the screen) > Hardware and Devices >Next >Follow the on-screen instructions.

Method 8: Restart the Computer in Clean Boot Mode 

Check Microsoft Support page for details on how to restart your Windows XP/Vista/8/8/1 in clean boot mode. Note that after troubleshooting, see the section "Reset the computer to start as usual” to return your computer to a Normal startup mode.

Method 9. Remove All Old Drivers and Install the Latest Ones

This will help to prevent software/hardware/process conflicts. How to remove/uninstall drivers on your computer? It is easy with the free driver manage software I mentioned in the above DriveTheLife. Free download it now just for a try! 

Method 10: Replace Your Old Video Card 

After trying a lot of methods and no vain, it is possibly the problem of your old video card. It’s time to buy a new video card.

Read this related article for more additional tips. 

How to Backup (before Reinstall) and Restore (after Reinstall) Windows Drivers

It is important to backup drivers especially before a Windows reinstall because after the system formatting, all the drivers are erased. Without drivers, computer won’t work because driver is the bridge between computer and its hardware. So it is highly recommended to backup your drivers before reinstall so that you can restore them from backup after the reinstall. For data security, it is also highly recommended to backup your personal files before erasing system.

Part 1: How to Backup Drivers before Windows Reinstall

Generally, you have 2 ways to backup Windows drivers. One is to use driver backup program and the other is to copy drivers and setup information files to external drive for safe keeping.

1. Use Driver Backup Program

You may find that nearly all driver update software provides you with driver backup option but not all the software is free for backing up drivers. Some programs offer to scan for the outdated drivers for free and charge for downloading/installing let alone the additional backup function. Now that I can backup drivers for free even by copying them to external drives, why would I pay for such a program to backup the drivers? Yeah, it is right. We need free service!

Then, try DriveTheLife, a professional and totally free driver update and manage tool designed for all Windows users. When download, install and launch it, it will scan for your computer for all the available drivers, and you can back up the drivers not backed up. Easy and quick!

2. Copy Drivers and Setup Information Files to External Drives

Before proceeding, you need to know where the device drivers are stored on your computer. In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, DriverStore is the very folder. Inside it, there is a folder called FileRepository which stores all the driver files. Seen as below:

Click any specified file folder, you can see 4 files including the driver file (ended with .sys), the driver setup file (ended with .inf), pre-complied INF file (end with .pnf), and an XML file manifest file that contains the manifest of all the files within the driver package.

Earlier in Windows XP and Windows 2000, the driver files were typically located at the following possible locations:

• %SystemRoot%\Driver Cache\i386\drivers.cab
• %SystemRoot%\Driver Cache\i386\service_pack.cab
• .inf files under %windir%inf
• .sys files under %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers
• Support DLLs under %SystemRoot%\System32
• Third Party co-installers in various locations

So just keep the corresponding file folder for safekeeping before system reinstall.

Part 2: How to Restore Drivers after System Reset

After the system reinstall, you need to install the needed drivers right away to make your computer run normally. To do this, you can install drivers with driver software like what I recommend in the above DriveTheLife or restore drivers from the backup you made before reinstall. In addition, DriveTheLife also allows you to restore drivers from backup. So DriveTheLife is the right choice for you to restore/install drivers after formatting system.

After you launched DriveTheLife, go to Manage board, next to the Backup option is the Restore option. It allows you to restore drivers from the backup. Seen as below:

Restore Drivers with DriveTheLife

How to Free Download and Easily Get Drivers Update for Windows Hardware

When Do You Need to Download and Update Drivers?

• After Windows system reinstall/format, you need to install the necessary drivers to make your computer run normally
• After installing a new device on your system or purchase a new device to upgrade the old
• When there are outdated drivers on your computer hardware devices, you need to update the drivers to the new version to get a better computer performance 
• When your drivers are missing or unfortunately broken/corrupted, you need to get the right drivers to ensure the normal operation

But how to get the right and new drivers for free easily and quickly? This is what I will demonstrate in this article.

How to Get Windows Drivers for Free?

Generally, you have 3 ways to get drivers download and update: From Windows Update, from manufacture’s website manually, using driver update tool. From Microsoft official site, you can get detailed steps on how to get drivers update from Windows Update and manufacture’s website. So I won’t give unnecessary details for that.

Yea, I will introduce a free and great driver update tool to all of you. The free tool is DriveTheLife which is designed for all Windows users to update, fix, backup, restore and uninstall drivers. Below is the simple using guide of this software.

How to Use Free DriveTheLife to Update, Fix and Manage Drivers?

Step 1: Get it

Download DriveTheLife from official site and install it by double click the .exe file on your computer. You can customize the installation directory and save the installation files where you like.

Step 2: Use it

After the installation is done, ”Launch“ it to scan all the available drivers to find the ones in problems and outdated. You can repair all the problems with one click by clicking the Repair button. However, this will only fix the problematic drivers and won’t update out of date drivers. Don’t worry, go to the Local board on the left side, you can get all the updatable drivers. You can update them one by one or just tick all to update at one time for all.

Step 3: Done

Now you have got the drivers updated or fixed/backed up. You can manage your drivers if needed on the Manage board. You can backup, restore and uninstall drivers here.
For more details, visit DriveTheLife user guide page.

You can choose any of the methods to get drivers on your own need. Also, Microsoft provides a video tutorial about automatically get recommended drivers here.

You can make it!

3 Ways to Update Windows Drivers for Hardware That isn’t Working Properly or Has Outdated Drivers

Hardware Working Improperly on Windows Laptop/Desktop

If your Windows hardware device is working improperly, don’t blame the innocent device itself. Before taking the hardware device to the doctor’s store, you may need to check whether the software that supports the hardware to work is all right. It is quite obvious that the software is the bridge that connects with the hardware and your computer, called driver.

An outdated, corrupted or missing driver can lead to hardware failures. So for any reason, just uninstall the drivers and reinstall it with the latest and suitable driver. How to? Generally, there are 3 ways to update your Windows drivers.

3 Ways to Update Drivers for Windows Hardware Devices

First of all, the commonly used devices on computer are video/graphics card that produces normal display, sound card, network card (both cable network and wireless network are included), motherboard. And there are many peripheral devices connecting with computer like keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, mobile phones, card readers, digital camera, gamepad and so on. Click here for more drivers download. All the peripheral devices need proper drivers to work with computer.

Now let’s learn how to update and fix driver problems for your Windows computer.

Method 1: Use Smart Driver Update Software

The easiest and most energy-efficient way is to use an automatic driver update program tool which would detect the missing, corrupted and outdated drivers and then install the right ones with ease.

There are many such programs, maybe the most popular and well-known one is Driver Booster, right? But today I’d like to recommend a new giant rise of driver update software – DriveTheLife. It is very simple and clean to use, totally free for all Windows users. Have a try of the new choice!

DriveTheLife-Update Drivers

Method 2: Update Drivers Through Windows Update

Most drivers update can be found via Windows Update. So you can check for hardware outdated drivers from Windows Update. But not all updates are included in Windows Update and there might be some delay to inform updated drivers.

1. Press Start button, in the search box, type update, in the list of results, click Windows Update.
2. In the left pane of the new window, click Check for updates. It will inform you available updates after the check. Click the link to see detailed information about the update. Each type of update might include drivers.
3. On the Select the updates you want to install page, look for updates for your hardware devices, select the check box for each driver that you want to install, and then click OK.
4. If there are any driver updates, click Install updates. If it prompts for a computer restart, the update will take effect after the restart.  

Windows Update

Method 3: Download and Install Drivers Updates by Yourself

The last and the least recommended way is to download and update drivers by your own especially you are not knowledgeable on computer hardware and software. It is troublesome to do this, what’s worse is that if you install the wrong driver, device may not work and even lead to dead computer in the worst case.

However, if you hold a firm decision to update drivers by yourself, do as the follows:

• Check your hardware information and find the corresponding drivers from its manufacture’s website, download drivers from the driver download page.
•  If it is a ZIP file, unzip it and click the right .exe program to install (Just like installing other software).
• After the driver installed alright, restart your PC to let the new driver take effect.

Update Drivers Yourself

You can choose any of the above methods to update Windows hardware drivers as necessary.

Simple and Free Driver Updating and Managing Software – DriveTheLife

Why Do You Need to Update Windows Devices’ Drivers?

There is an old saying that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” for drivers update principal. It told people not to update Windows drivers until it is broken. But today I would like to hold a new opinion: Keep your drivers up to date!

Why? Because:

As we know, the aim to update software is to fix bugs found in older version and make improvements.  Driver is also such kind of software which is designed to enable the communication between hardware devices and computer. It is a data transfer bridge.  So updating system drivers makes your computer run better and function more smoothly. It prevents device errors/conflicts, maximize computer stability and can even lend quicker repairs to future problems.

And another key matter is that there is a new free driver update tool DriveTheLife which is straightforward, easy-to-use, effective and totally free! It won’t even cost a penny to keep your drivers up to date!

DriveTheLife

Key Features of DriveTheLife

1. Scan and find the outdated, missing, corrupted, broken Windows drivers
2. Fix drivers that have problems in a very short time
3. One-stop manage: backup, restore, uninstall, install & evaluate PC drivers
4. 100% compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista

Need it? Free download DriveTheLife right away!