Getting rid of audio driver that Windows keeps reinstalling in Windows 7 64.

[Elizara]

This might belong in the BSD thread but here goes..it relates but I think this a a sep issue.

I seem to have a problem with getting rid of this audio driver that Nivida likes to install (that I'm dead sure is the cause of some bsds). Every time I reboot, Windows wants to reinstall it!

Is there a way to be sure it's gone for good? I'm getting tired of it doing that, esp when it is prolly the root of my computer crashes...

[Totien]

Disable the device?

[Elizara]

Tried that, still crashed. I finally got rid of it though; now I have 2 MS hd drivers in Device Manager, hopefully that'll stop the crashes cold. There's a checkmark I didn't notice until last night that said "Uninstall the Software"; I checked that; No more nivida HD sound driver (Is unnecessary anyway since I use sound though my mb)

My theory is that it was the two audio drivers clashing that is causing my crashes. We'll see in a week or so. *knocks on wood*

[Totien]

HDMI ports on most video cards will play audio, so unless you have a dedicated audio card that's where it's coming from. You can try disabling audio in the nVidia control panel too.

[Ikith]

If you come to find that removing that driver did not fix your issue and you are still getting BSODs, may I suggest a piece of software called "Whocrashed" to further analyze the cause of your blue screens, that is if you haven't tried that already.

Edit: Just saw your post in the BSOD thread, looks like you've already tried look at whocrashed. Disregard this post.

Edit2: Another tool you can try to dump drivers is driverfusion, used this a couple of times to dump out some old video drivers that were causing issues, it's main feature which is wiping out drivers is free.

[Elizara]

Got rid of it but still crashed; if it does it again I'm prolly going to take the step of reformatting(It might be something that I can't get rid of easily), but thanks for the help guys. *backs up FFXI*

[Aldon]

If it's Windows attempting to install the same driver over and over again, I might be able to help. I run into this problem ALL the time at work (have to basically deal with driver issues all day long)

Vista: Go to control panel -> System -> Advanced -> Hardware tab -> Windows Update Driver Settings -> Ask me each time (or Never, whichever your preference is)

In Windows 7 it is something like Control Panel -> Devices and Printers (or something similar) -> you will see an icon of your computer that has the same name as your OS's Windows netbios Workgroup name -> right click, Device Installation Settings (or similar, don't have a windows 7 box in front of me at the moment). Somewhere in there you can set Windows to never install drivers automatically again