Windows 7: Is it safe to update ATI drivers via CCC update utility?

Hello everyone. Just a small query. Is it fine if I update my ATI drivers via CCC update utility or should I manually download the latest drivers, uninstall the old drivers (driver sweeper and all) and then install the new ones?

My CCC downloaded and installed the new drivers last night. PC is working fine, but just out of curiosity, is it OK?

- can't see a problem, the AMD link will direct you to the latest and most stable compatible driver available for your card..

- I'm assuming that you aren't messing about with overclocking and the like..

BugMeister's views are sound, but as a fellow ATI card carrying member, let me offer an alternative counter point to his suggestion..

If you ever have any issues from that automatic installation, remember that the manual uninstall, sweep and reinstall is the best way to wipe out all the remnants of troublesome drivers, include ones Windows keeps when you install new drivers on top of older ones continuously...

Just my 0.02...

Manual, all the way for me...

CCC's automatic updater installs the new drivers on top of the older ones you already have on your system... additional space will be consumed as Windows keeps a copy of the older driver in Windows\system32..

Problem with this is that say in the future you want to do a manual install by yourself, when you uninstall the CIM package (Catalyst Install Manager) completely, it only uninstalls that version of the drivers.. and what happens when you restart?

Windows pulls out one of the previous drivers you have on your system (that it has kept as a rollback when CCC installed the newer drivers automatically), and complicates the issue.

Instead of seeing a fresh Standard VGA Adapter entry in your Device Manager, you'll see the older driver kept by Windows because CCC helpfully installed the new driver on top of the older one...

So you have the keep on uninstalling all the previously accumulated ATI graphic card drivers that Windows has kept in its system folder (one for each month that CCC kept on updating your system with ) using the the device manager until it reverts back to the Standard VGA device to ensure a new clean driver install can be performed on your graphics card..

That is a veritable hassle and is why i'll never use CCC's auto update utility; in fact i don't even use CCC to manage my graphics card..

ATI Tray Tools download from Guru3D.com

Phew.. that was a mouthful...

i) Make your way to ATI Drivers - Downloads and download the latest driver for your card, save it to your desktop for instance
ii) Uninstall the Graphic driver you currently have and all its extensions (do not reboot yet)
iii) Download Driver Sweeper
iv) Get to safe mode (without network) and search for Driver Sweeper in your
v) Select all the ATI components and analyse them
vi) Clean them, head into Windows without internet and install the driver you've downloaded previously