Latest AMD Catalyst Video Driver for Windows 7

Which catalyst did you download? Radeon or Mobility? Typically you wouldn't install the catalyst by itself unless the matching drivers were already on first. Obviously you have a different set causing the problem there since those are a different set to begin with. The wrong type of catalyst like for Radeon not Mobility will fail as well.

This is where I go for the latest drivers
Graphics Drivers & Software

That's the original support site seen there when AMD first bought out ATI. Since then they spruced things up a bit with the game.amd.com site. Drivers & Tools | GAME.AMD.COM

Night Hawk said:

You don't need a 3rd party program to see the catalyst and drivers removed. Those come off easy by simply going into the "C:\ATI\support\Cat version\driver" sub folder and start up the installer from there.

Once that comes up you simply select the unistall option. ATI provides their own remover for the registy entries as well as the drivers themselves.

In an ideal world, yes. But it's not an ideal world.

However, I've lost track of the times leaving it up to the ATI software to remove everything has failed resulting in nothing but shenanigans.

So yes, you sometimes DO need a 3rd party app to finish the job.

But then what would I know? I've only used my method multiple times which has always 100% resulted in a working CCC and driverset

smarteyeball said:

In an ideal world, yes. But it's not an ideal world.

However, I've lost track of the times leaving it up to the ATI software to remove everything has failed resulting in nothing but shenanigans.

So yes, you sometimes DO need a 3rd party app to finish the job.

But then what would I know? I've only used my method multiple times which has always 100% resulted in a working CCC and driverset

While I can't fully dismiss the help a 3rd party remover can be at times most software companies do provide their own form of driver/software removers at this point. I guess I've always been one of the more fortunate never having had the need for a special remover in all but a few rare circumstances in the last decade alone.

Another option often forgotten about on how to go about a manual removal of any device drivers is a simple trip into the device manager itself and selecting the uninstall option when right clicking on a particular item there.

Night Hawk said:

While I can't fully dismiss the help a 3rd party remover can be at times most software companies do provide their own form of driver/software removers at this point.

This is true and a lot the times they work quite well.

Another option often forgotten about on how to go about a manual removal of any device drivers is a simple trip into the device manager itself and selecting the uninstall option when right clicking on a particular item there.

This is good for removing the driver itself, however it doesn't address the rest of the components. (If installing the CCC suite as well)

Using the CCC suite example, removing the driver itself tends to break the CCC installed component which can manifest in all sorts of errors/crashes upon subsequent re-installation / driver updates. ie incorrect cat version compatibility with drivers which can and will led to crashes/bsod etc.

I only advocate the uninstall / clean process when a normal installation fails or exhibits problems afterwords.

A good rule of thumb is: Start off simple

Update over existing installation with no problems, your fine. The software did it's job.

Uninstall using the provided ATI software and then install. Again, no problems it's done it's job.

However if by Updating over existing installation and you experience one or many issues then it's time to save yourself safe the headache by using the uninstall normally /and then the driver sweeper cleanup.

It's simpler and more expedient to start from scratch and potentially eliminate any unnecessary troubleshooting techniques.

I've had a few driver releases that have been an absolute breeze to update - it works as advertised. But by the same token I have also had some installations that have fought tooth and nail to get working properly.

A lot of the problems users have posted about, I have experienced in one way or another. 9 times out of 10 an uninstall/clean routine has fixed the issue. If I didn't believe it worked, I would not consistently recommend it.

The one thing I've noticed about the catalyst installer is that it will remove the existing software/drivers in order to install the newer version on. Now if you were reverting back to an older Cat/drivers you then need to be everything was off for a clean install of a previous update.

Most of the time yes, that's how it works. However every now and then it just plays silly buggers seemingly with out rhyme or reason.

I also have a crossfire setup that could potentially compound the issue.

Don't get me wrong mate, I'm not saying your advice is wrong at all. I'm simply offering another method that I personally have found to work consistently whenever ATI installations go awry.