Windows 7 Computer is Crashing...Driver Cleanup For Windows 7?

Coach Bombay

New Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2009
I had a period of about two weeks with Windows 7 without any crashing, but I've been switching video drivers back and forth for the past couple of days trying to find which ones I want to use, and it's gotten to the point where my computer has been crashing at least twice a day, and its been in a game every time. I'm thinking it has to do with driver remnants hanging around on my comp, are there any driver cleanup programs for Windows 7 yet? Also, I want to know how to disable Windows 7 from automatically installing drivers for my graphics card... that could be the problem in itself.

The only other thing I think can think of that could be causing the crashing is that I was testing overclocked my computer around the same time I started playing around with the drivers... Cool and Quiet kept my CPU from barely ever using the overclocking though because my CPU is so fast and I have a really nice heat sink (thermaltake V1). I removed the overclocking after the first crash I experienced, and I've experienced like 8 since then so I'm doubting it's CPU related.

Thanks for any help!
 
You can remove the drivers via the device manager. Open the device manager, open the hardware related, and click "remove drivers". I would NOT RECOMMEND you to use 3rd party applications for driver managing in Win7, as drivers are tricky as f*ck, and Win7 is still RC...

How to stop Win7 from installing drivers by itself:

Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System > Advanced system settings > Hardware tab > Windows Update Driver Settings button > adjust setting as desired.
 
That file path doesn't exist in Windows 7. I have system/advanced system settings/hardware ...but there isn't any windows update driver settings there.
 
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That will only stop Windows downloading driver updates - it will not stop it reinstalling anything already on your system.

You need to move them manually.

You will find any drivers it has downloaded so far in ( if it's your D drive, obviously)

"D:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download"

Any drivers installed with 7 are in

"D:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository"

you could try this - probably won't need it :

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper
 
thanks, that didn't fix it... but my nVidia graphics drivers won't install until I've installed the Microsoft drivers first anyway... new to me, but w/e. I installed the new forceware drivers from guru3d.com, hopefully no more crashes :(
 
Sadly, as I mentioned , that doesn't stop windows installing the drivers it already has - just the ones from Windows Update.

Glad you got the new drivers installed - hope it works out for you.
 
nope... just went into a Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor game and sure enough 5 minutes into a 2v2 my computer makes the hanging noise and shows me a black screen with the comp still turned on. I'm running a Phenom II 440, 4gb corsair dominator, GTX 285 running COH on high settings... so there's absolutely no way its overheating or too heavy on resources related. I had just played an hour of Left 4 Dead without any issues. WTF?!?!

This happened on GeForce Forceware 186.18 WHQL Win 7 | Vista (64-bit)
 
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Why do I have to install Microsoft drivers before the nVidia drivers will recognize that I have one of their GPUs in my computer? My computer installs the Microsoft drivers and requires a restart... and then I am allowed to install the nVidia drivers and they install without requiring me to restart... all that I can tell that has changed is that it gives me the nVidia control panel.

I feel very strongly that my problem lies with the fact that I've tried to use several different drivers and parts of them are hanging around on my computer, how do I fix this short of having to reformat?
 
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...another crash today, this is a really serious issue. I have about a 40% chance of crashing out of COH when I play. I'm out of ideas, please help!!!
 
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