{"id":29019,"date":"2022-10-05T23:09:22","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T17:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=29019"},"modified":"2022-10-07T07:51:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T02:21:30","slug":"driver-uninstall-completely-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/driver-uninstall-completely-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Completely Uninstall a Driver in Windows 11\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Windows comes with many built-in drivers for various hardware. When you connect a device to your computer, Windows will automatically install drivers from the driver store. If a suitable driver is unavailable in the store, you can use the vendor-supplied device driver or let Windows download the device driver automatically from the Microsoft Update<\/a> servers.<\/p>\n

Over time, your system will have accumulated device drivers for hardware you no longer use. You may be wondering how to delete unnecessary drivers from the driver store in Windows. The driver store folder is located at C:\\Windows\\System32\\DriverStore<\/code>.<\/p>\n

This article will show various ways to uninstall a driver altogether. The procedure comes in handy when you want to delete an incompatible driver so that you can activate the Microsoft Defender core isolation or memory integrity<\/a> feature.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> Before proceeding, you may consider taking a backup of your installed device drivers using DISM or PowerShell. For more information, check out the post How to Backup and Restore Device Drivers in Windows 11\/10<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Uninstalling a device driver\/driver package in Windows<\/strong><\/p>\n
    \n
  1. Using Settings<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Using Device Manager<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Using DISM and PnpUtil commands<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Using DISM via Windows RE<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Using Driver Store Explorer<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Using Autoruns from Microsoft Sysinternals<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Using the SC.exe command<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Note:<\/strong> Methods 6 & 7 will delete only the driver\/service registration in the Windows registry; they won’t delete the corresponding driver file from “Windows\\System32\\Drivers” and the driver package located under “Windows\\System32\\DriverStore”.<\/p>\n

    Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n