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AMD Radeon RX Vega 56

Whether you're moving from an older driver to a newer one or replacing your video carte birthday, properly uninstalling your drivers is a critical component of arrangement maintenance. In this guide, nosotros'll walk through using AMD's standard utility for driver removal, too as discussing whether or not you need to use a third-political party tool.

It's best to download the new commuter you lot intend to utilize before uninstalling the onetime one. While this isn't absolutely required, there'south a necessary reboot between uninstalling 1 driver and reinstalling the other (and we recommend rebooting between the two steps in any case). In one case the organisation is rebooted, it'll typically be running at a lower resolution and menus may be harder to navigate equally a result. It'south just easier to download the replacement driver first.

The first uninstallation step is extremely simple. You can use either the "Add together/Remove Programs" menu from the Windows Settings carte du jour or "Programs and Features" if you prefer to utilize the Windows 7-style Control Panel. Either way, notice the "AMD Software" option and click "Uninstall." You'll be asked to confirm this option. Click yes, and your Radeon software installation volition be removed, along with whatsoever other AMD drivers if yous're also running on a Ryzen system. Different Nvidia, which has multiple pieces of software to remove, AMD uses a simplified uninstaller.

Once y'all've uninstalled the old driver, you'll be prompted to reboot. It's at this indicate that people typically ask "Is running the default uninstaller from AMD or Nvidia plenty, or practise I need to use a third-political party production to perform a more comprehensive system sweep?"

How Third Party Uninstallers Work

The uninstallers that AMD and Nvidia use don't actually scrub everything they install to your system. It's common for registry keys, folders, and installation files to be left behind. This speeds the reinstallation process, and information technology's part of why you tin uninstall i driver, install the adjacent, and still have the aforementioned profile settings you were previously using. A tertiary-party tool like Brandish Driver Uninstaller (DDU) volition remove even these elements, restoring your car to a pristine country.

DDU-Drivers

15-xx years ago, using a third-party tool to scrub display drivers was a practical requirement, specially when switching betwixt an AMD and an Nvidia GPU. These days, the overall state of affairs is much improved. You can typically swap from one driver to the next with no problem, and Windows may not bat an eyelash if you pull an AMD card out and driblet an Nvidia GPU in. I've even tested GPU swapping without uninstalling the other vendor'due south software. You'll become mistake letters when vendor-dependent software attempts to initialize, but that's about information technology.

Practise you need to run a third-party commuter uninstaller? Probably not. Windows has gotten much meliorate at handling these kinds of swaps. Simply if you're trying to troubleshoot a problem with your organization, or want to make absolutely positive that at that place'southward no style leftover cruft from a previous AMD or Nvidia installation could be mucking upward your operating system, then the best mode to practice that is to apply a third-political party utility similar DDU.

Once yous run the awarding, it'll recommend that y'all reboot into Safety Mode (you tin click on the "Options" card and choose the "Enable Safe Mode dialog"). Exit the application and run it again after doing this, and yous'll get a screen like this one. Choose "Condom Way" from the drop-down menu, then striking "Launch" to reboot into Safe Mode:

ddu-launch

We recommend running DDU from Safe Way. The awarding advises that you should unplug your figurer'due south Ethernet cable during the uninstallation and new commuter installation process, to prevent Windows ten from downloading new drivers for your GPU and attempting to install them. I don't usually find that necessary, but YMMV. When you run it for the first time, DDU attempts to prevent Microsoft from continually downloading its own commuter updates and overwriting the drivers distributed by AMD and Nvidia. If you don't want information technology to practise this, y'all can click the "Set Windows Device Installation settings to Default" push button, as pictured above. This will restore Windows' default behavior.

If you simply want to install a new driver, click "Clean and Restart." If you accept other tasks to take care of while in Rubber Fashion, click "Make clean and practise Non restart." If yous need to install a new GPU, choose "Clean and Shutdown." In one case you lot boot your organization back up, yous'll be able to install your new GPU driver without worrying that one-time crufty elements were left behind. And if y'all don't desire to bother with the extra steps of DDU, Windows is generally flexible enough these days to handle a switch without a problem, provided you use the vendor uninstall first.

Now read: Windows 10: The Best Subconscious Features, Tips, and Tricks