squall-leonhart

sehlat
 
It didn't clean things up for me in Win 7 Pro. It added yet another list of files from the new driver install to the previous driver list that C: drive NVIDIA folder, so now I've got 2 sets of trash sitting in that folder. Can those files within the NVIDIA folder be safely deleted, or even the entire folder itself? I do have an SSD for my OS drive and space is at a premium. I am happier with this driver however. I was occasionally getting an error where the driver stopped and recovered. One time it took so long to recover that Aferburner (I only use it for fan speed control, I don't overclock) lost it's connection with the GPU and I had to reboot, and that was while I was surfing, not playing a game.

no idea what the hells happening for you, the driver removes those files for me.

The Nvidia file pile left on my drive in C:/Nvidia after the install of version 397.93.
 

bdary
@ sehlat > Use DDU in safe mode and then reinstall the driver of your choice > https://www.wagnardsoft.com/
 
That will give you a clean slate.  Then the next time you go to install a new driver, do a manual, custom install making sure to put a check in "clean install" from now on.

I DID use DDU before I installed this driver. I was having issues with the previous driver randomly stopping and recovering, so that's why I decided to use DDU in safe mode THIS time, to make sure things were thoroughly cleaned up. Then when I installed 397.93, I also checked the "perform a clean install" box to be absolutely sure and I only installed the driver and PhysX. Nothing else. So when I looked in my C: drive after all was said and done, there was that stupid Nvidia folder with all it's glorious trash, now containing the old driver AND the new driver's leftovers, still staring me in the face. So I guess the next time I update the driver, can I just delete that whole Nvidia folder before installing the new driver without creating massive screwup?

I am definitely NOT letting Windows install the driver. I accidentally made that mistake a while back when I didn't check what Windows Update wanted to install one time (facepalm). That's the time I had to search the net and find DDU just to fix the mess that Windows made of my system. In fact, I always disable Windows Update when I go through the driver install process, the one nice thing Win 7 allows me to do without having to unplug the network cable. The only thing I didn't allow DDU to do was to delete my monitor driver and yes, I'm in safe mode. With everything else, I let DDU do it's thing. Then once I rebooted into glorious 640x480, meaning only a bare bones VGA driver was installed, I used Nvidia's own driver install program I downloaded from EVGA sitting on my desktop, selecting only the driver and PhysX and being sure to check the box to do a clean install. Everything else should have been purged as you said. Yet, there sit those install files in that top level Nvidia folder, including the ones left over from the previous driver install. I didn't think DDU removed that particular C:/Nvidia folder, or am I misinformed about that? Isn't it just an install history trash folder for Nvidia's use anyway? Why would DDU need to touch it since it hasn't ever removed it in the past. I decided to clean it out myself with a judicious use of the delete key one time because it had gotten humongous, but of course, it came back. In fact, this time, I deliberately left that folder sitting there before doing the driver update just to see if Nvidia would clean up after themselves as was claimed. Nope. Next time I do a driver update, I'll check to see if that folder is still sitting there after DDU gets done and before the new driver gets installed.