How to update your ForceWare graphics drivers on Windows

[Adirondack]

Uninstalling the NVIDIA Display Driver Software
Note: It is highly recommended that you follow the steps in this section to completely uninstall
the NVIDIA Display Driver software before updating to a new version of the software.

To uninstall the nView software, follow these steps:
1 From the Windows taskbar, click Start > Settings > Control Panel to open the Control Panel window.
2 Double?click the Add/Remove Programs item.
3 Click the NVIDIA Display Driver item from the list.
4 Click Change/Remove.
5 Click Yes to continue.
A prompt appears asking whether you want to delete all of the saved nView profiles.
• If you click Yes, all of the nView software and all of your saved profiles will be deleted.
• If you click No, the nView software is removed, but the profile files are saved in the Windows\nView directory on your hard disk.

Your system now restarts.

Installing the NVIDIA ForceWare Graphics Drivers
1 Follow the instructions on the NVIDIA .com Web site driver download page to locate the appropriate driver to download, based on your hardware and operating system.
2 Click the driver download link.
3 The license agreement dialog box appears.
4 Click Accept if you accept the terms of the agreement, then either open the file or save the file to your PC and open it later.
5 Extract the zip files to a temporary folder on your PC.
6 Open the NVIDIA driver installation .EXE file to launch the NVIDIA InstallShield Wizard.
7 Follow the instructions in the NVIDIA InstallShield Wizard to complete the installation.

Edit:
Laptops/Notebooks will need a driver from the web site of the manufacturer of the laptop (not from Nvidia!)!

Adirondack

[BobHegwood]

Hey thanks Ulrich...

I had no idea that the older drivers should have been removed first. I'm not really
having any problems, but I will certainly follow this procedure the next time I update
my drivers.

Take care, Bob

[Reiko]

The same goes for ATI drivers. Clean them out completely first or you risk having planets look like fluorescent tennis balls.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

How do we save our original drivers in case the new drivers somehow don't work?

[Reiko]

How do we save our original drivers in case the new drivers somehow don't work?

Use software like driver magician or driver genius to back up your drivers. They work really well and will put them in whatever format you wish.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok, My computer is telling me there is Windows Vista Service Pack 2 available as an update. Now, I know that installing it will ruin my graphics, because the description of it says that it includes all the updates that came out since I got this computer, which means it includes the Microsoft Windows graphics drivers that will replace the Nvidia graphics drivers.

What should I do? How do I uninstall the windows graphics drivers so I can replace them with the correct Nvidia drivers if I were to download and install Vista SP 2?

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

as far as i know there is relay nothing you can do .
in a regular update you go to "windows update" using IE 7 or 8
select "custom update" ( DO NOT USE EXPRESS UPDATE)then when you see the nvidia driver you expand the description and there is a check box that says " do not show me this again"
but that ONLY works if MS dose not flag the update as a SECURITY update .

your best bet is to KEEP the nvidia driver up to date from the nvidia web site . that way YOUR installed version is the same or NEWER than the one in the MS update . That way MS's gl disabled driver will not install .

but with a service pack the ONLY thing you can do is to uninstall MS's driver and install nvidia's driver

And do I do that using the same procedure as in the Original Post? Or do I do something different?

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

It appears that ms is thwarting me. I tried uninstalling the graphics drivers to install the nvidia drivers, but every time do, windows vista automatically re-installs the microsoft graphics drivers, even in safe mode.

When I tried installing the nvidia drivers, the nvidia installer told me it couldn't find the drivers or hardware needed for installation.

then when I restarted and tried installing the drivers in normal mode, the installer told me it couldn't do anything because the microsoft installer wizard was active.

Right now, things are looking bleak, and that I won't be able to view celestia like I used to.

[t00fri]

Depending on the brand of laptops and the used card, it may take special action to update graphics drivers by the standard ones from the NVIDIA site. Normally, for these laptops, one has to update the drivers from the vendor's site instead. The reason is that in such cases, the laptop requires a modified .inf file together with the standard driver. This typically happens in case of NVIDIA GO graphics cards which you also own!

This general problem I know very well in case of all my DELL Latitude laptops. Only most recent DELL machines work with the standard drivers from the NVIDIA site. These cases are listed explicitly by NVIDIA ...

A typical signature for the situation I am describing is a message like:

"nVidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."

during the installation of the standard NV driver.

There is a site where the appropriately modified .inf files are offered, such that the standard NVIDIA driver update may be loaded without complaints by the particular laptop.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

Besides offering basic info
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/ind ... topic=9243

and a FAQ
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/ind ... opic=10561

this site also offeres step-by-step instructions for VISTA.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/ind ... opic=11997

If this is the reason for your problems, I conclude that you don't seem to have updated your graphics drivers a lot in the past

Fridger

[PlutonianEmpire]

Thank you Fridger for your information! It was a lot of help!

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

[t00fri]

Thank you Fridger for your information! It was a lot of help!

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

But what did you do after all? Did you now manage to install a new driver??

Fridger

[PlutonianEmpire]

Thank you Fridger for your information! It was a lot of help!

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

But what did you do after all? Did you now manage to install a new driver??

Fridger

Oh yes I did.

[t00fri]

Thank you Fridger for your information! It was a lot of help!

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

But what did you do after all? Did you now manage to install a new driver??

Fridger

Oh yes I did.

Excellent!

Fridger

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[Adirondack]

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

That was already done on January 11, 2009! See bottom of the initial post:

Edit:
Laptops/Notebooks will need a driver from the web site of the manufacturer of the laptop (not from Nvidia!)!

Adirondack

[t00fri]

Perhaps this info could be added to the Original Post?

That was already done on January 11, 2009! See bottom of the initial post:

Edit:
Laptops/Notebooks will need a driver from the web site of the manufacturer of the laptop (not from Nvidia!)!

Adirondack

That statement is not even correct in general, as I outlined in considerably more detail in my above post. On the one hand, very new laptops can indeed download their graphics drivers directly from the NVIDIA site. On the other hand, older laptops can get the required modified .inf files from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ and then download their drivers from the NVIDIA site...

Are you really saying that the content of my post was contained in this single sentence of yours?

Fridger

[Guckytos]

In any way, I will revise the FAQ before 1.6.1 and make sure to include this point of Laptop drivers as a better marked point.

Regards,

Guckytos