gHacks technology news » driver sweeper http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Device Driver Cleanup http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/device-driver-cleanup/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/device-driver-cleanup/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:24:47 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/device-driver-cleanup/ It is sometimes not possible to remove all device drivers and Registry settings for a device in the Windows operating system. So called leftovers can cause a series of problems from slow boot times to performance and stability issues. Trying to cleanup the device drivers manually is a complicated long winded process as it does not only mean to delete files and Registry settings but also to find out which files and settings are related to the hardware.

Driver Sweeper has been covered about two years ago at Ghacks. The software has been designed to cleanup device driver leftovers both on the hard drive and the Windows Registry. The software program comes as a portable version or installer and can cleanup driver and Registry leftovers of the following hardware devices:

  • AGEIA – PhysX
  • ATI – Display
  • Creative – Sound
  • Microsoft -Mouse
  • NVIDIA – Chipset
  • NVIDIA – Display
  • Realtek – Sound

While that does not cover all hardware devices it does provide the means to cleanup several of the most popular. All the user needs to do is to select and check one or multiple entries from the list and click on the Analyse button afterwards.

device driver

The program will scan the system for files and Registry settings for the selected type of hardware and display those in a list. All entries are checked by default and can be cleaned from that window. It is also possible to uncheck certain entries before starting the device driver cleanup process.

The developers of Driver Sweeper are recommending to uninstall the hardware using the uninstallation routines provided by the Windows operating system and / or hardware manufacturer before running their product to find and cleanup the leftovers. They also suggest to run Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode so that the tool can safely delete the files and Registry settings.

The software has an option to create backups of the device drivers which is highly recommended before starting the cleanup process. Another possibility is the software device driver backup which we covered before at Ghacks.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/device-driver-cleanup/feed/ 9 Remove Driver leftovers with Driver Sweeper http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/31/remove-driver-leftovers-with-driver-sweeper/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/31/remove-driver-leftovers-with-driver-sweeper/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:36:37 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/31/remove-driver-leftovers-with-driver-sweeper/ Drivers that have not been removed from the system after uninstalling the device and software can have a serious impact on system stability. You could for instance be in a world of trouble if you have been using a Ati card and Ati drivers and switched to a Nvidia card and drivers. Driver leftovers could affect system performance and be the reason for crashes and bluescreens.

Driver Sweeper can be used to get rid of leftovers after the normal software uninstallation has been executed on the system. It is basically a software that makes sure that no old or incompatible drivers are still installed on the system. It currently supports Nvidia and Ati drivers, Creative (sound), Realtek (sound), Microsoft (mouse) and Ageia drivers.

The process looks like the following. The normal uninstallation routine is started, the computer is rebooted into safe mode and Driver Sweeper is scanning the system for leftovers and getting rid of them in the process. A log file lists all deleted files afterwards.

It is necessary to select the drivers that you want to scan the system for. This is however a pretty straightforward move and should not lead to complications. Just make sure you do not scan and remove the wrong ones.

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