NV Updater (Nvidia Driver Updater) 0.4.0.1 released to customize Nvidia driver installations
We reviewed NV Updater, a tool to customize installations of Nvidia drivers by blocking certain unwanted components from being installed with the driver, in February 2020.
The developer of the application released version 0.4.0.1 recently and with it a good selection of additional components that administrators may block from being installed.
Nvidia is notorious for adding components to its driver; some of these may not be needed others not wanted by users. Additionally, the regular driver installation process lacks options to disable the majority of components that get installed during driver installation.
A classic example is the installation of the Nvidia Shield controller driver. If you don't own a Shield, you don't have any use for that driver. Same is true for other components such as 3D drivers, ShadowPlay, or Telemetry.
It has been our recommendation from the start to only install the Nvidia components that you need on your devices, e.g. only the Nvidia graphics driver and to do clean installs. Third-party programs like NVSlimmer, NVCleanstall, or TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker assist users in the process.
NV Updater
The latest version of NV Updater is available on the project website. It is compatible with all recent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system and offered as a 1 Megabyte archive. Just extract the archive on the system after the download and run the installer to install it. The program checks for the existence of Nvidia cards and will exit if none is detected.
The interface displays all available options; at its core, it is an update checker that will automatically customize drivers before the driver gets installed on the system. First thing you may want to do is change the update check interval (every six hours). You may also disable checks for NV Updater update checks.
Once done, check the components that you don't want to be installed on your system when a new driver is installed. The latest version introduces support for the following components:
- NvCamera - Ansel
- HDAudio - HDAudio
- PPC - USB Type-C Port device driver
- Display.NView - nView
- Display.Update - Display driver automatic updater
- MSVCRT - Visual C++ runtime components
- NGXCore - NGXCore
- nodejs - Node.js
- NvAbHub - AbHub
- NvBackend - Nvidia Backend
- NvVAD - Virtual Audio Driver
- NVWMI - WMI provider
- Update.Core - Update core
Note that some of these may be required for some functionality. You may need to experiment with component removals to get it right on your system.
Previously, you already could configure NV Updater to remove components such as GeForce Experience, Telemetry, ShadowPlay, Shield Wireless Controller Driver, NvContainer or Physx.
Closing Words
The update to version 0.4.0.1 introduces new components that users may remove from Nvidia drivers so that these are not installed on their devices. NV Updater is a good option for Windows users who want more control over the installation process. It lacks options to process a manually downloaded driver at the moment; NVSlimmer may be the better option in that case as it allows you to do that.
Now You: Do you customize your driver installations?
This is Ghacks not How to Geek…
Shaun’s articles should be classified under a new ‘…for Dummies’ section. Just lol.
The only way to learn is to read as much ad possible. If you knowledge is too high then you can choose the articles and read only your selected ones. I read all the articles, there is always good and useful info in all of them, more or less. Thanks for the article.
@John G.
Please STOP enabling this nonsense. Unless you’re one and the same…
Notice he said “Much Ad Possible” – now there’s a Freudian slip!