Published in SOS January 2001 Technique : PC Notes Martin Walker explains how to clear out all the drivers, utilities and Registry entries associated with an old, disused soundcard, leaving you with a clean machine in which to install your new, upgraded hardware. Many musicians are now discarding their older soundcards and replacing them with 24/96-capable ones. Although soundcard manufacturers all provide clear instructions on how to install the required new drivers, and many also give step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade them, I've seldom seen details on the cleanest way to remove all traces of an unwanted soundcard. It is perfectly possible to power down your PC, remove the card in question, and then carry on with the drivers still installed, since Windows will ignore them in the absence of suitable hardware. However, this might cause possible problems in the future if you install another expansion card that is incorrectly recognised - I've experienced several cases where new hardware fails to be recognised because of existing software drivers. Besides which, your Registry will still contain references to the soundcard, and you may also get error messages from music applications that, for instance, find ASIO drivers for non-existent soundcards. Removal Plan As you might expect from someone who has now reviewed forty soundcards, I've been through this procedure a lot, so here's a step-by-step guide on how to remove a soundcard from your PC as cleanly as possible. You should leave the soundcard in place until last of all, since once it's been physically removed you won't find it listed as a System Device and be able to get at all the drivers. First remove the MME drivers from the system: go into the Windows control panel, double-click System, then click on the Device Manager tab. Click on the plus sign in the box next to Sound, Video and Game Controllers.
Content Main1 The AMD Clean Uninstall Utility will attempt to remove any previously installed AMD Catalyst™ display and audio drivers, and cleans up left-over files and registry entries from the system. This helps to prepare the system for a better driver installation experience. NOTE: The AMD Clean Uninstall Utility should only be used if the normal uninstallation procedure using the Windows Control Panel's Programs and Features option is unsuccessful. NOTE: All previous versions of AMD display and audio drivers as well as AMD software components will be removed by the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility. This utility removes the enumerations created under the display and audio registry keys resulting from multiple graphics cards. The AMD Clean Uninstall Utility can be downloaded from the following link: AMD Clean Uninstall Utility NOTE: The AMD Clean Uninstall Utility is designed to be supported only on systems running Microsoft Windows® 7 and above. How to use the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility: After downloading the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility, locate the file where it was saved and double click on the AMDCleanup Utility.exe icon. A warning message will appear stating that the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility will remove ALL AMD driver and application components. Click OK to continue Click Cancel if you wish to exit the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility After clicking OK the utility will be minimized to the notification area (system tray) and the progress will be displayed as a tool tip. The uninstall process will continue to run in the background. To check the progress, hover the mouse over the AMD icon in the notification area. NOTE: While the uninstall process is running, the display may flicker or turn black for a few seconds. This is normal while the system is applying new settings. Once the uninstallation process is finished, a message is displayed stating it has.
Description Info All versions Reviews Discussion Driver Cleaner Professional helps you to make your computer more stable and usually also faster. When you uninstall or install new drivers for your graphics card, motherboard, soundcard and such there is often registry settings and files that do not disappear as they should. In Driver Cleaner Pro database is saved the files and registry settings that each part, like soundcard, of your computer uses. When you use this program it cleans those files and registry settings and when you install your new drivers you can be sure that your hardware uses the most recent files, registry settings and such. Screenshots: HTML code for linking to this page: Keywords: driver cleaner pro driver cleaner pro clean unused files License type Freeware1 Author's homepage Visit the author's site Date added ownloads 527,927 File size 2.69 MB (<1min @ 1 Mbps) Operating systems Vista / Win2k / Win7 / Win XP1 1 License and operating system information is based on latest version of the software. river Cleaner Pro v1.5( Latest stable version).
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