ATI Users - Uninstall/Reinstall Qs

[TVeblen]

We recently added to our computer family a new laptop with ATI graphics. I was looking around inside to see if could uninstall the drivers the same way I have been doing for my nVidia cards - to install new drivers (when the time comes) cleanly. My last ATI card was a 9800Pro on an XP box so it's like starting over!

Q1: Normally I would first go into "Remove Programs" and uninstall the nVidia Stuff there.
For ATI there is only: "ATI Catalyst Install Manager". I assume this is what I uninstall to remove all the Catalyst software and drivers? (Shouldn't that be "ATI Catalyst UN-install Manager?).

Q2: Normally I would delete the old nVidia Drivers folders on C: before restarting (to avoid Windows finding and reinstalling old drivers). nVidia just has one folder on C:\.
For ATI there are 2 folders:

• C:\Program Files\ATI
• C:\Program Files(x86)\ATI Technologies

Would I delete both? Are these uninstalled running the ATI Catalyst Install Manager?

Q3: nVidia cleans up pretty thoroughly after Remove Programs, does ATI?

Any other tip and tricks for clean installing new ATI drivers in W7 would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Prof Kerfuffle]

Drivers are not stored there there in a driver directory, you remove the drivers using device manager. Then install the drivers after you removed CCC

 

[stormy13]

Personally all of that is way overkill, and at least with ATI drivers on 7 (and Vista) all you need is to install over the top as the Catalyst Install Manager takes care of the uninstalling of the old and the installing of the new. Don't even need to restart once the install is complete, unless you want to for old times sake.

The only time you may want to do a "clean" install is if you have a problem with a current driver and want to go back to an older one.

Q2: Normally I would delete the old nVidia Drivers folders on C: before restarting (to avoid Windows finding and reinstalling old drivers). nVidia just has one folder on C:\.
For ATI there are 2 folders:

• C:\Program Files\ATI
• C:\Program Files(x86)\ATI Technologies

Would I delete both? Are these uninstalled running the ATI Catalyst Install Manager?

Leave them alone, everything there will be uninstalled or over-written during the install process. There will be one folder you can delete once the install is done,

C:\ATI or C:\AMD (depends on how old or new the installer is)

this is the folder where the download extracts too and can safely be deleted after installing.

P.S. What make of laptop? Depending on who it is from there is a good chance that you won't be able to use the reference drivers from AMD anyway (Sony is one of the main one's for this, and only be able to use the drivers from the laptop manufacturer without having to mod them.

 

[TVeblen]

Thanks for the info. Yep. It's overkill. Love overkill!

According to science, you can install nVidia drivers the same way (right over the old ones), most times you won't have a problem. But when you do, that's when you wish you did!

This is a Gateway NV59C57u. I was aware of the inf issue from other threads. We will see about that, when and if the times comes. Do you know of a way to tell beforehand?

 

[stormy13]

This is a Gateway NV59C57u. I was aware of the inf issue from other threads. We will see about that, when and if the times comes. Do you know of a way to tell beforehand?

Looking at the specs for that laptop,

Gateway Official Site: Shop - Notebooks – NV59C57u Laptop Product Details

I would say that there is even less chance of the reference drivers working modded or not, due to it also having and using the integrated Intel video (integrated in the CPU) when in low power or general usage. Pretty sure you will find the reference AMD drivers are missing whatever modifications are needed for them to work properly with the auto-switching feature between the two GPUs.

 

[TVeblen]

I will certainly experiment with this laptop only after a fresh disk image! (If I ever get the chance).
Thanks for that info.

But back to the original Qs (In general, for any other ATI system, overkill allowed):
You uninstall ATI drivers (CCC) by uninstalling the "ATI Catalyst Install Manager"?
You only would delete the C:\Programs\ATI folder?

 

[TVeblen]

For anyone interested:

This is from the AMD website and answers Q1 quite thoroughly. Nice Step-By-Step:
GPU33DriverInstallInstructforWindows7

If I find anything about the folders, I'll post back.