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dexter · 10th May 2008, 14:27

After using the following procedure and either removing, or uninstalling approximately 100 old drivers (*all* the ones which were greyed out) off of my year-and-a-half old window's OS system, the PC's startup time has cut in half.

Loved this heads-up, worth it's weight in gold.

Enjoy

,

"Remove Old Drivers

If you are experiencing weird issues after upgrading your hardware, or you've just upgraded to the latest hardware device and aren't seeing the performance you'd like, you might want to remove the old drivers which are still installed for the old hardware, even though you can't normally see them in device manager.

What you have to do is set a less-known flag to allow you to see non-present devices, and then launch device manager. You'll then see the old devices in the list, and can uninstall the drivers for them.

In Windows Vista, or XP, the first thing you'll need to do is open a command prompt in administrator mode. Type cmd into the start menu search box, and then use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open in administrator mode. (You can also right-click on the command prompt and choose Run as Administrator)
Now paste in the following line:

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

Then type in devmgmt.msc to start up Device Manager from the administrator command prompt:

Once you are in Device Manager, go to the View menu and choose Show Hidden Devices, which will show all the device drivers including things that aren't currently installed in your computer.

Notice how I have 6 mice in the list, even though I only have two installed (and my drawing tablet). The other 3 mice are old mice that I've used until they died…. the Geek
tends to wear through input devices very quickly since he never leaves the computer…

You can right-click on the driver and then choose Uninstall from the menu to remove the drivers for that old hardware.
I've found that this can resolve a lot of weird issues, and even increase performance on some machines where you've upgraded a ton of times. This isn't necessarily going to increase performance, but it's nice to have a tidy computer nonetheless.
This tip also works the same in Windows XP."

Remove Old Drivers After Upgrading to New Hardware :: the How-To Geek

10th May 2008, 14:27	#1 (permalink)
dexter dexter is..... Dexter Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Bangkok Posts: 2,018 vCash: 470 Rep Power: 691	Huge Windows Performance Tip! After using the following procedure and either removing, or uninstalling approximately 100 old drivers (all the ones which were greyed out) off of my year-and-a-half old window's OS system, the PC's startup time has cut in half. Loved this heads-up, worth it's weight in gold. Enjoy, "Remove Old Drivers If you are experiencing weird issues after upgrading your hardware, or you've just upgraded to the latest hardware device and aren't seeing the performance you'd like, you might want to remove the old drivers which are still installed for the old hardware, even though you can't normally see them in device manager. What you have to do is set a less-known flag to allow you to see non-present devices, and then launch device manager. You'll then see the old devices in the list, and can uninstall the drivers for them. In Windows Vista, or XP, the first thing you'll need to do is open a command prompt in administrator mode. Type cmd into the start menu search box, and then use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open in administrator mode. (You can also right-click on the command prompt and choose Run as Administrator) Now paste in the following line: SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 Then type in devmgmt.msc to start up Device Manager from the administrator command prompt: Once you are in Device Manager, go to the View menu and choose Show Hidden Devices, which will show all the device drivers including things that aren't currently installed in your computer. Notice how I have 6 mice in the list, even though I only have two installed (and my drawing tablet). The other 3 mice are old mice that I've used until they died…. the Geek tends to wear through input devices very quickly since he never leaves the computer… You can right-click on the driver and then choose Uninstall from the menu to remove the drivers for that old hardware. I've found that this can resolve a lot of weird issues, and even increase performance on some machines where you've upgraded a ton of times. This isn't necessarily going to increase performance, but it's nice to have a tidy computer nonetheless. This tip also works the same in Windows XP." Remove Old Drivers After Upgrading to New Hardware :: the How-To Geek __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Last edited by dexter; 10th May 2008 at 15:05.