Sometimes devices won’t have an uninstaller, or the uninstaller will not appear in the list. Double-click the entry to begin the uninstallation process.
Use the Properties menu to uninstall your driver software or roll back to a previous version.Īt this point Windows will automatically remove the current driver for the device and reinstall the previous driver. Click Yes to begin the roll-back process. A dialog box will ask you to confirm your decision to roll back to a previous driver.Double-click the problematic device to bring up the Properties window.
Microsoft has introduced an easy way to roll back to a previous (and, you hope, more stable) version of the driver, or remove it from the system altogether, giving you a clean slate to try again or install a different version. Thankfully, when you prepare yourself for battle with a problematic driver, you have a couple of tricks that can help. For example, when Microsoft’s Windows Vista came out in 2007, critics lambasted it for being slow and prone to crashing Microsoft investigated the causes and found that a majority of crashes were due to driver issues. On those occasions when things go wrong, however, they can go really wrong, and even crash your entire computer. Most of the time the driver installation process is simple, seamless, and transparent to you, as it should be. Although they install with ease just like any other software, they integrate deeply into the OS, sinking their teeth into areas most other software doesn’t go near. These finicky pieces of code act as the middleman between your PC’s hardware and its operating system.
With some devices, if the device is still plugged in when it is uninstalled, the device might continue to function until the system has been restarted.įor more information about uninstalling driver and driver packages, see How Devices and Driver Packages are Uninstalled.Installing drivers can be a hair-raising adventure, even on today’s modern operating systems. When ready to complete the operation, select OK. On the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, if you wish to remove the driver package in addition to uninstalling the device, select the Delete the driver software for this device option.
This page describes how to uninstall a device or driver package on Windows 10.