How to completely remove a driver from a Windows system. How to remove old USB device drivers from Windows

As you know, quite often many computer system users are faced with the problem of removing old or unused device drivers. This can be due to many reasons, including hardware conflicts and malfunctioning devices. This also includes installing more recent versions of drivers. This is where a logical question arises: how to remove the driver of a particular device?

What is a driver

Before you begin the process of removing a driver or updating it, you need to know what it is. In fact, this is a small program that ensures communication between the hardware component and the operating system, without which the device itself not only will not work, but the system may not even recognize it.

In some cases (especially when automatic system updates are enabled), it becomes necessary to change the driver version to a newer one.

View information about driver versions and files

Now a few words about what needs to be done before proceeding with the removal operation. First, you need to find out the driver version (especially when it was downloaded from the official website of the equipment manufacturer). It is very likely that the system has the latest version, and this is not the reason for the conflict or hardware failure. Then the problem of how to remove the driver will disappear by itself. There are several ways to do this.

For example, for Plug & Play devices or standard system components, you can use the DirectX dialog call (dxdiag command in the Run menu). True, here you can see the versions of screen drivers, sound equipment and input/output devices (if something else is not installed).

However, in the question of how to view information and how to remove a driver, it is better to use standard Windows OS tools. In addition, this is the simplest and most proven method.

Removing drivers using standard Windows tools

In this case, you need to use the Control Panel menu, in which you select the “Device Manager” item. The name may change depending on the version of the installed operating system. Now just select the device you are interested in and call up the context menu, then use the “Properties” command. There will be a complete description of the driver version (the “Driver” tab, the “Properties” menu).

Now let's look at an example, say, how to remove an audio driver (or how to remove a printer driver). In principle, the formulation of the question does not matter, the scheme is the same. We carry out the procedures described above, but only instead of the “Properties” button we use the “Delete” button. The system will ask you to confirm the deletion, after which you can restart the computer.

If the printer drivers are standard and included in the Windows installation package, they will be installed automatically after a reboot. Otherwise, you will have to install them either from the original disk or download them from the manufacturer’s official website.

By the way, this method of viewing information about drivers is also convenient because here you can even find out the location of the files themselves. If for some reason the system cannot remove such programs, you can begin to resolve the issue of how to completely remove the driver manually. To do this, you just need to delete files from the location specified by the system, as well as the corresponding registry keys. However, this is highly discouraged for inexperienced users.

Third party software

Today there are quite a lot of programs that can solve the problem of how to remove old drivers automatically. One of these is Driver Sweeper.

This software product has a lot of customization options, for example, filtering by equipment manufacturer, etc. But it is better to check the names of all manufacturers when starting, and then begin the process of analysis and cleaning. It will take a few minutes and will provide a report about outdated or unused (unnecessary) drivers on the system. The latter, by the way, can cause conflicts in the operation of the equipment, since the system itself alternately accesses one or another driver.

Don't be surprised if the program even finds drivers for integrated video cards or sound chips. Next, you need to click the “Cleanup” button, after which everything that the application found will be deleted.

Of course, an inexperienced user can do such things only at his own peril and risk, but, as practice shows, this program works absolutely correctly, does not cause failures in the operating system and does not interfere with the operation of software and hardware components.

Automatic update

Among programs of this type, we can highlight special utilities designed to automatically update all drivers available in the system. The question of how to remove a driver does not arise here for one simple reason. The fact is that many programs are capable of removing old ones automatically before installing new versions of drivers. But most of these software packages are paid. But the advantage of their work is that they apply directly to the equipment manufacturers’ websites for updates, so that absolutely all drivers will have the correct digital signatures upon completion of installation or update.

We continue to clean the system of accumulated garbage. Today we will touch on the topic of drivers. In the article, I only showed a little at the end how you can remove drivers. But in the article it was a matter of “firewood” and it was necessary to remove it. There I described in more detail.
Therefore, if you want to remove or roll back drivers, read one of the articles above. Or better yet, both.

Now closer to the point. The method described below will help you see and remove all drivers that are on the system and not in use. What kind of firewood is this? Yes, all kinds. These are also those that were installed when you “stuck” some other person’s flash drive once. This includes firewood that was installed along with some program for video or sound processing, as well as antiviruses, etc. software. Subsequently, you have already deleted these programs, but the tails in the form of drivers may remain. Also, this rubbish may remain after an incorrect reinstallation of Windows.

Now we will remove them using the standard Windows method.

Opening System properties. This can be done in three ways:

1) Win + Break/Pause

2) RMB on the icon My computer and in the context menu select Properties

3) Start -> Control Panel -> System

In Windows 7 and 8 you also need to select on the left Advanced System Settings

All that remains is to open this same Manager.
Or in this very System Properties window, select the tab Equipment:

You can also simplify all these actions (before opening the Manager) by entering in the command line Set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
Then you can open the manager, show hidden ones and delete them.
The thing to keep in mind here is that after a reboot this option will disappear.

That's all. And as a conclusion I would like to give a few notes:

1) If it doesn’t work, try doing it as Administrator

2) If not displayed, click on the "Update hardware configuration" button or restart the Manager

3) Watch carefully what you delete. If something doesn’t start later, it’s not my fault.

4) The list does not always show unnecessary ones. Everything that was installed may be present there. Therefore, think again about whether you need to delete it and whether it will definitely no longer be used. Although the firewood will then be reinstalled again, but not for all devices.

Created based on

In Windows, when installing or updating device drivers, older versions of drivers are saved in the system. Thus, the user is given the opportunity to return the old version of the driver at any time if the new driver is unstable (a useful feature, as shown by the case in which it was necessary). However, Windows does not automatically clean or remove old versions of drivers, so over time, the amount of space occupied by drivers on the system disk becomes quite large. In this article we will talk about ways to remove old versions of drivers (duplicates) using internal system tools (without using third-party software).

Windows stores all driver files in its driver repository (), located in the directory %WINDIR%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository.

In my case, on a home laptop with Windows 7 (the system was installed almost 8 years ago), the FileRepository directory takes up about 11 GB and contains >5000 files. Quite a lot! In particular, this directory stores more than 20 different versions of the Nvidia video driver.

Important!

1. Under no circumstances should you manually delete driver files from the DriverStore directory.
2. Before cleaning drivers, it is strongly recommended to create a system restore point (Checkpoint-Computer -Description "BeforeDriversDelete") or .
3. After clearing the storage, when connecting new devices, you may have to download and install drivers manually.

Finding and removing old driver versions in Windows 7

Let's look at a way to find and remove outdated drivers for Windows 7 (Windows 8 and Windows 10 have simpler methods for removing old drivers, which are described below).

Let's get a list of all third-party drivers available in the system and upload them to a text file. To do this, in the command line with administrator rights, run the command:

dism /online /get-drivers /format:table > c:\tmp\drivers.txt

We import the resulting file into Excel and delete all unnecessary data so that only a table remains with the lists of repository drivers in the format: driver number in the system ( oemXXX.inf), name of the original inf file, device class, manufacturer, installation date and driver version.

We sort the resulting table by column B (contains the name of the original inf file) and column F (driver installation date). Among the groups of drivers of the same name, we mark all driver versions except the latest one for removal. In my case, it can be seen that most of the older driver versions belong to NVIDIA.

To remove the driver, you can use the pnputil command:

pnputil.exe -d oemxxx.inf

Note. In some cases, you can remove the driver only with the key –f: pnputil -f -d oemxxx.inf

For convenience, we will form commands in an empty column to remove each driver using the formula =CONCATENATE("pnputil.exe -d ";A21)

All that remains is to copy the generated commands and execute them in the command line or bat file.

Thus, I removed about 40 old versions of drivers from the system, thereby freeing up about 8 GB of space (mainly due to NVIDEA video drivers).

Removing old drivers in Windows 10/8 using Disk Cleanup utility

Windows 10 / 8.1 has a more convenient tool for removing old versions of drivers - the familiar disk cleanup utility cleanmgr.exe, which also allows you to clean the disk from .

Note. In Windows 10 and Windows 8 Upd 1 there is an option available in the system in a separate directory.

The cleanmgr utility will remove all old unused driver versions. However, at the same time, you need to understand that in the driver properties in the device manager, the “Roll back driver” button will become inactive.

First of all, it’s worth saying why you need to remove drivers for unused devices. If you previously used any equipment on your computer (USB, PCI, etc.), even after you stop using it, the system still stores drivers in its directories. Of course, they are not loaded into memory, however... It may happen that for some reason there is conflict between new hardware and old driver. Finding a solution can take a lot of time. The problem mainly affects PCI video, audio and network devices.

In addition, drivers are constantly updating their versions, but the old ones do not disappear, causing a decrease in computer performance and conflicts with other, newer equipment. In all these cases, it is advisable to cut off everything unnecessary - remove the drivers of those devices that are outdated or not used at all.

Remove unused drivers in Device Manager

So, click on the icon Computer on the desktop, right-click and bring up properties. In the window that opens on the left, select device Manager. In the manager window, we need to enable the display of hidden devices: View -> Show hidden devices:

Below is the result of this action. As you can see, after turning on the display of hidden devices, a lot of equipment appeared in the manager that you had used before or not used at all.

So, now select the device you don’t need, right-click and select “Delete”. Agree to deletion in the dialog window.

After this, the driver will be removed from the system.

Warnings

As you know, there are always “BUTs”. The most basic advice is to not remove the driver unless you are sure it is the device. After all, there are drivers for protocols, some system services, and virtual devices. They are activated directly when they are used by the system. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL with such drivers. If possible, do not use the branches “System devices”, “Drivers of non-plug and play devices” .

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You probably know that the components of all modern computers need so-called “drivers”. This is software that, in a way, explains to the operating system the operation of the connected device (video card, for example) and ensures its full and stable operation. Without the necessary driver, the component either works incorrectly or does not work at all. Installing the driver is quite simple. Modern versions of Windows 10 can download drivers automatically from the update center, relieving the user of the need to download something manually. Others prefer to install them themselves, but this also does not require special skills or knowledge. Problems may begin when it becomes necessary to reinstall or remove the driver. This guide will tell you how to remove a driver in Windows 10 and then get it back.

Why reinstall the driver?

Reinstalling drivers (rolling them back or completely removing them) often solves a large number of potential problems. A software failure, incorrect driver, buggy version, or other driver problems are almost 100% likely to cause problems with the operation of the device for which this driver was created. For example, the video card may not produce its maximum capabilities, the network card stops working, the card reader turns off, or the computer completely reboots or crashes into the blue screen of death. It is precisely at such moments that the need arises to remove the driver in Windows 10 and reinstall it.

How to remove a driver in Windows 10

There are several ways to perform this procedure. The first is done through the Device Manager - a special section of the operating system that contains a list of all connected devices to your computer.

FYI: To remove a driver in Windows 10, you need an Administrator account or password.

For reference: Removing drivers automatically disables the device. If you uninstall the video card driver, the screen resolution will automatically drop to a very low resolution. When you uninstall Bluetooth drivers, all connected peripherals will automatically turn off, and uninstalling the network card driver will lead to the disappearance of the Internet connection, and so on. Keep this in mind.

The second method for removing drivers is through the Applications and Features interface in Settings or Control Panel. This method is not suitable for all devices, since not all drivers are displayed in the list of installed applications. If you cannot find the driver you need in the Applications and Features section, use the first method.

Optionally, you can use the classic Control Panel interface. The essence is the same, it’s just that the interfaces are a little more familiar for those who have only recently switched to Windows 10, and were previously on Windows 8.1 / 7 and older.

There is also a third way to remove and reinstall drivers. It involves the use of so-called “driver managers”. These are applications that scan the system and its drivers, check for new versions and offer you to update them. There are paid and free analogues, but the quality and reliability of their work is an endless source of controversy among Windows enthusiasts. In our instructions, we talk about methods built into the system and rarely touch on third-party applications. Of course, driver managers can make life easier for the user in some sense, but we recommend learning to understand the process of installing or uninstalling drivers yourself.

How to reinstall driver in Windows 10

After removing the driver, there is a logical need to reinstall it. Again, there are several ways to do this.

The first and most reliable is to download the driver from the manufacturer’s website. There you can always find the latest and most current versions of drivers for supported operating systems. Manufacturers also often offer previous versions of the software. This is necessary so that if a buggy update is released, users can download the previous stable version and wait for the corrected driver to be released. Go to the manufacturer's official website, find your device, download the driver installation file and install it. The matter is very simple and not as scary as it might seem to a novice user.

The second method is for the lazy. You can let the system do everything for you. After removing the driver, go to Windows Update and check for updates. Windows must find the driver it is missing, download it and install it.

Here you need to keep in mind that not all manufacturers publish their software in Windows Update. Also, the latest driver version is not always available there. This method is well suited for those who do not have the time or desire to surf the Internet in search of the required driver. If the search through the update center does not produce results, go to the manufacturer’s website and manually download the driver you need.

The third method is the same driver managers. They can scan the system for driver updates or devices for which the software is not installed. There is nothing shameful in using such software, but true users always do everything manually.

How to update driver on Windows 10

Modern computer components are designed in such a way that their drivers come with utilities that can automatically update drivers. These utilities can download updates without any user intervention at all. If you want to check for driver updates, turn to these utilities first. You can also download and install the latest drivers from the manufacturer's official website. When installed, the driver will do all the updating work for the user.

You can also update the driver the old fashioned way from Device Manager.

FYI: Sometimes when installing drivers manually, a driver signature error may occur. In this case, you need to and then install the driver again.

How to roll back to a previous driver version in Windows 10

Driver rollback is needed in order to diagnose problems with your hardware or work around a bug in a new driver version. For example, you notice problems with your hardware and are trying to find their source, or immediately after updating a driver, you have problems with stability or performance. The process of rolling back a driver is similar to the procedure for removing it.

After the rollback is complete, restart your computer.