Comments on: Remove Old Drivers After Upgrading to New Hardware

By: rhonda

rhonda — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:54:22 +0000

Please Help HELP HELP…ME RHONDA…….I just bought a new hard drive for my Gateway GM5684e, it is not installing the operator system, it just keeps looping, one minute it says it is missing something for the system32 then another time it says that the registry or the other files are corrupt. I am trying to install Windows Vista

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:51:03 +0000

I have windows vista basic and I need to get rid of a driver, for a game that I installed but I found out was not compatible with vista. Unfortunately one of the drivers reminds me every time I start up that its not compatible but I need to find it an delete it. Can anyone help me?

By: Glen

Glen — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:46:20 +0000

Thanks for the info!

By: Marc Routhier

Marc Routhier — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:08:28 +0000

Its not showing the wrong processor it does not show one at all in system properties, but it does show in the bios and device manager.

By: wolf

wolf — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:42:29 +0000

If it’s consistantly showing the wrong processor, it’s probably just how windows is displaying the CPU Version.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

By: Marc Routhier

Marc Routhier — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:26:42 +0000

I changed processors several times and was able to remove all the old ones. But it still does not show in system properties. Athlon fx55 single core. think it time to format and start over. Thanks again for all the help!

By: wolf

wolf — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:15:12 +0000

Marc Routhier – Is it a QuadCore processor ??

Quad and Dual core processor will show multiple instances of the hardware, it’s a windows thing.
Also Dont worry about it, it will not affect your performance in any way, Windows wont constantly look for the missing hardware, it simply keeps the registry information in case the device is plugged back in.

Good practice to keep the dev manager clean, but mainly look at USB devices as they can build up a hell of a lot over time, and also Hard drive partitions ( From external drives and flash drives ), if you move a USB device to a different port, windows will re-install it and create a new instance in the dev manager ( usually called #2, #3.. .etc ) again this wont affect performance, but if it gets out of hand, it could bloat your registry and cause headaches when you try to re-install some certain hardware.

Some hardware shows up as invisible too, it may be a system critical driver that hidden to stop you accidently removing it, Dont remove it unless you know you can A: put it back, B: reinstall your OS / Repair install your OS.

Always better to play it safe when your messing with hidden things

By: Slikkster

Slikkster — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:42:43 +0000

Belay my last…After finding the actual KB page from MS, I realized my issue: If you close the cmd prompt, the variable is cleared. The real answer is to make the change permanent as noted in the tips above.

By: Slikkster

Slikkster — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:36:11 +0000

I find no difference using this variable in XP, and I’ve made tons of hardware changes over time. Yes, I copied and pasted correctly. Using XP Pro. Thoughts?

By: Marc Routhier

Marc Routhier — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:20:22 +0000

Thats great in vista but how do you do it in xp pro? I did a driver scan and found that i still have four processers installed. In device manager it does not show the processer at all. i have changed the processer several times. Can anyone help?