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Driver Sweeper

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2011
Posts
2,192
Every now and again i get a "Display driver has stopped working but recovered" error, im just wondering since i never removed old drivers or did a sweep this could be causing problems? Ive never used Driver Sweeper before so im wondering is it safe to give a try since people say dont mess with it
 
Associate
Joined
6 Dec 2004
Posts
121
I always install my drivers this way;

Check for latest update for Driver Sweeper (it's now called something else)
Download latest drivers
Uninstall current drivers (complete uninstall)
Reboot into Safe Mode (without networking)
Run Driver Sweeper
Reboot into Normal Mode
Install drivers
Reboot

Always works for me
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2009
Posts
16,548
Location
Greater London
Sounds a bit extreme. All I do is uninstall via Contral Panel, then Device Manager, reboot if asked, then install new drivers.

If it's Windows 7 it should be fine if you didn't uninstall the old ones when changing GPUs. 7 is pretty good at handling multiple GPU drivers.
 
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Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2010
Posts
14,591
Don't not use driver sweeper for Windows 7. So far of the people I've seen using it in Windows 7, it screw something up for them and most of them ended up having to reinstall Windows.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2010
Posts
14,591
I used Driver sweeper countless times, 20+, and it's never caused me even the slightest problem.
Is for that for removing Nvidia or ATI/AMD driver? I think all the people I saw got problems were using it for removing ATI/AMD driver. The fact is while there may be no issue for you, but it did mess things up for quite a lot of people.

May be it is not the fault of Driver Sweeper itself, but something to do with AMD/ATI drivers instead.
 
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Associate
Joined
10 Mar 2010
Posts
1,077
Location
London, UK
I used it recently for the first time to clear out old AMD GPU driver and install the latest, having issues with all sorts of things since (not just with games, but with video editing software etc), even after rolling back to the old driver.

First time use, never gonna use it again.
I've uninstalled and updated drivers before without issue but used it on recommendation. Now I'm gonna have to re-instal windows *sigh*.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2005
Posts
2,825
Location
SW Scotland
I'm aware that there was a problem a while back (last year sometime?). When one release of Driver Sweeper when removing ATI graphics cards drivers, also removed some critical Windows 7 file :eek::eek::eek: The Author did promptly issue a fix and re-released Driver sweeper. Not sure if there's been any other problems since?

Mind you... All I do is just install over-top of my existing Nvidia drivers. Fingers crossed, it's been a fair while since I've had any graphics driver related issues. Though I'm first to admit that I only update drivers if necessary (IE. bug fixes, or definite performance improvements etc.).
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Apr 2004
Posts
3,859
Location
Shropshire
Is for that for removing Nvidia or ATI/AMD driver? I think all the people I saw got problems were using it for removing ATI/AMD driver. The fact is while there may be no issue for you, but it did mess things up for quite a lot of people.

May be it is not the fault of Driver Sweeper itself, but something to do with AMD/ATI drivers instead.

Nvidia.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Jul 2012
Posts
16,911
No issues here either. In fact I found that, until 12.2, AMD drivers never fully unintalled themselves.

That's because they're not supposed to. The drivers are intended to be installed over the top of older drivers. Driver sweeper causes more problems than it's worth.

Some people might not have any issues with it, but they're lucky really.
 
Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2007
Posts
579
aint used driver sweeper in years, win7 is quite good at deleting the rubbish..... ccleaner cleans the rest :)

use ccleaner reg cleaner as well it really helps out.
 
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