Confused: removing ati drivers / catalyst

[Taziir]

So I've decided to switch from my trusty 4890 to the 480se and am looking at what I need to do to remove the ATI catalyst and drivers in preparation for using the nvidea card.

Honestly I'm more confused than before I started. Searching these forums and elsewhere suggests that Catalyst and the drivers are tricky to fully remove and can cause issues if it's not done just right. I wondered if there is any kind of consensus on what does / does not need to be taken out?

I'm running Win 7 home 64bit, installed just over a year ago, not yet on sp1. The card was installed during OS installation and I haven't touched it since - think I'm running catalyst 10.2.

Some guides suggest going Remove programs > catalyst > change > Uninstall. Some suggest just uninstall directly. Others mention an ATI tool to uninstall. Then there is Driver Sweep (or some such) and Reg Cleaner that some posters swear by and others suggest these hose the system files needed for future driver and service pack updates.

Guess I'm looking to get the consensus on these boards and hopefully an idea how to swap cards with minimal disruption and without totally reinstalling the OS.

 

[KnightsWhoSayNi]

programs > ati catalyst install manager > change > Uninstall

Do not use driver sweeper

 

[RJC]

That's what I done when changing from ATI to Nvidea, not had any issues.

 

[[Olly]]

Control Panel > Programs and Features > Right Click ATI Catalyst Manager > Change > Uninstall > Run CCleaner to clean registry > Restart > Install new drivers.

Worked for me when I last upgraded my card.

 

[buchtis]

Uninstall from Control Panel and remember to delete any ATi folders remaining. Some like to hide so on Start, type in %appdata% and hit Enter, delete any unwanted Ati crap.

 

[Sgt Tackleberry]

programs > ati catalyst install manager > change > Uninstall

Do not use driver sweeper

Why not driver sweeper?.

I've used it in the past and it works well.

I've got my gtx 480 SOC coming 2morrow and when i remove my ati i'm going to use driver sweeper.

 

[straxusii]

I recently went from 5870 to 480, I uninstalled the CCC and recently ran the latest driver sweeper from guru3d also.

 

[Nelly]

I recently went from 5870 to 480, I uninstalled the CCC and recently ran the latest driver sweeper from guru3d also.

Don't use Driver Sweeper off the Guru 3D website it's out of date (2008) and removes Windows 7 system files that are required to update to Windows 7 service pack 1.

Below is the latest version of Driver Sweeper from the developer, which works correctly.

http://phyxion.net/Driver-Sweeper/Driver-Sweeper/Version-2-9-0/

 

[Taziir]

Thanks for all the replies. I'll avoid the 3rd party programs as I suspect Win 7 is more robust than XP. I'll use Remove > Change > uninstall catalyst from Safe Mode and see if the system behaves.

 

[brucey034]

I recently went from 5870 to 480, I uninstalled the CCC and recently ran the latest driver sweeper from guru3d also.

How are you finding the 480gtx compared to the 5870 ?
Mine is arriving today
Any regrets ?