How to roll back a Windows 10 sound driver. Restoring an old working driver: rollback to a previous version. Rolling back or uninstalling sound drivers

Good day everyone!

When searching for and updating drivers, it happens that the new driver begins to work unstable: it causes conflicts, errors, does not perform some functions correctly, etc.

In this case, it is recommended to roll back to the old previous driver, which previously worked in normal mode. I note that even if you didn’t make a backup of your drivers (or restore points in Windows), in most cases you can still restore everything (since Windows does not remove old driver, and it remains in the list of available on PC) .

In this article I will show you with several examples how this can be done.

Addition!

You might find this article useful on how to remove old (or unnecessary) drivers -

1) Via device manager

Option #1

There are two ways to roll back a driver through Device Manager. I like the first one because when you roll back, you can manually select the driver version that you need. I’ll show you with an example how you can restore an old working driver to a video card. So...

First we open device Manager . To do this, go to the control panel, enter “devices” in the search and among the results found there will be a link to the desired manager (see screenshot below).

After which a menu will appear with the choice: produce automatic search or manually on this PC. We choose the second option (see example below).

If you had several versions of drivers on your PC, you should now see a list of them. Be guided by dates, versions and title. By choosing any of the versions, agree to the installation.

All! The screen should blink, and then you will see a message indicating the successful (or unsuccessful) completion of the operation. An example is presented below.

Option No. 2

You can roll back the driver in another way: by finding required device in the manager, open it properties.

In properties, open the "Driver" tab - there should be a button at the bottom of the window "Roll back". I note that it is not always active (even if you recently updated the driver). Therefore, I recommend first trying the first rollback option (described above), and then this one.

Roll back the driver (if the device does not work after updating)

2) Using System Restore

If you have system restore points (and according to Windows default makes them (except for dozens)) , then you can try to roll back to the old driver using system restore.

How to see if there are restore points and run System Restore:

Addition!

3) Using special Driver backup utilities

I couldn’t help but mention this method in this article. True, in order to use it, you need to make a backup in advance (perhaps someone will find this method useful in the future).

The essence of the work is approximately as follows:

Addition!

This post will tell you how to create a backup step by step and subsequently restore drivers from it:

That's all.

Thank you in advance for any additions on the topic.

In the process of searching for a solution to a problem with the stability of the World of Warcraft client, which has been inexplicably freezing since the fall of 2016, I updated the driver for my GeForce GT 740 to version 378.49, after which my video driver began to crash several times a day, which was somewhat annoying, because .k the screen went dark for a few seconds, after which the car began to chug.
And a couple of times the system went into sleep mode altogether.

Having thought about it, I realized that we wouldn’t be able to live together with him, so I went online to see what was going on. It turned out that the problem is not only with me, but also with Steam gamers, because the developers discovered that the firewood does not work properly with the hardware. In this regard, Valve recommended rolling back the video card driver to the previous version 376.33.

But since she also fooled me, I decided to opt for the October 375.63. I found it on the nvidia website, downloaded it, unpacked it, remembered the path to the 375.63 folder, after which I canceled the auto-installation that had started and proceeded to manually downgrade the driver.

Here it should be noted that roll back Nvidia driver, and any other, is possible only in manual mode, since the automatic installer will say that you have more a new version, and if you try to roll back the driver through it automatic update with a search in the folder, the system will respond that the driver does not need to be updated.

Therefore, only hands, only hardcore!

Right-click on the desktop -> Screen resolution -> Extra options-> tab Adapter -> Properties-> tab Driver -> Update ->Search for drivers on this computer -> Select a driver from the list already installed drivers -> Install from disk-> enter the path C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\375.63\Win8_Win7\International\Display.Driver -> select our driver from the list and finish

The system pokes, coughs, blinks the screen and voila - we have rolled back the Nvidia driver to the previous version.

Those who like to install the latest software and update it immediately after the latest release sometimes find themselves in situations where the new software works worse than the old one. This is due to the fact that manufacturers software, releasing next version updates, focus on compatibility with new hardware and hardly think about the operation of the old one.

Problems may also appear when reinstalling drivers for Nvidia video cards. This is often expressed in a decrease in the card's performance in games, a decrease in screen resolution, and disabling some functions in the driver settings.

Until recently, manufacturers Nvidia cards We strongly recommended that you remove the previous one before installing a new driver. That is, do a so-called clean installation. Now the rules have changed, and it is recommended to install drivers on top of each other.

Drivers are easy to install, but it’s not clear what to do if the new driver works worse? To do this, you can, on the day when it was still working normally. The procedure is simple but long. In addition, if you installed any other applications after installing the driver, they will also be deleted.

IN latest versions starting from XP, it is possible to roll back only the driver and return to it previous version. Let's look at this using Windows 10 as an example.

You need to go to the “Control Panel” in Windows 10. This is done in a new, unusual way, because the “Start” button is no longer there. There are two ways: click on Windows icon in the lower left corner right click mouse or select a combination of two keys Win and X on the keyboard. In the rollout, select “Control Panel”.

In the Control Panel, select: System and Security > System > Device Manager > Video adapters. Double-click on the name of the video card, and in the window that opens, select the “Driver” tab and click on the “Roll Back” button.

The system will produce everything necessary actions, will make a reload request and boot with the previous driver. All functions will be restored. In the rest Windows versions, the rollback procedure is practically no different.

If the old driver was deleted, then using the described recovery method it will not be possible to return it to the system. You will need to remove the video card driver, find its earlier version on the Nvidia website in the “Archive” directory, download and install it.

Device drivers have hardware software settings, which help your system start the hardware properly. They can also be upgraded to increase the productivity and efficiency of the equipment. Each device has a driver that is displayed in “ ”, which tells you which devices are installed in your PC along with their properties. Device Manager helps you configure your hardware settings. Device Manager is useful in performing various tasks such as turning on, turning off, uninstalling a driver, rolling back an update, or scanning for any hardware changes.
If any hardware is updated and it begins to have problems in the system, it can be transferred to the Previous state (version) using the rollback function. Device Manager also allows users to view all installed hardware and its properties. Device Manager allows us to change hardware settings. When it comes to activity, uninstall, update, rollback, enable and disable drivers, Device Manager plays a role in it. In particular, the article will give you advice in terms of how to delete, disable, roll back, how to update necessary drivers on Windows 10, 8 and 7.

Tips - how to remove, disable, roll back, update device drivers in Windows 10/8/7

To open Device Manager, you need to get to the window by pressing the Window key + W in Windows 8.
In Windows 7, the Device Manager option appears after searching through the search bar. Then find the driver and right-click on it.

Then you will see options to update drivers, install drivers, and uninstall drivers.
Now the point-by-point demonstration will open the driver update path, roll back, disable and enable the driver.

Software update

To update drivers, you will need to open Device Manager and find the driver you want to update there. Once you find it, you will need to right-click on it and select driver options, and then click on the option to update drivers.

Remove, disable, roll back, update device drivers in Windows 10/8/7 via wizard

This wizard will open automatically with two options: search the Internet and find the driver on your computer.

You need to select one option to continue.

Open the device in the manager and find the drivers for which the update should be done using the above method. Double-click on the existing driver when a new window containing the driver properties appears.

Now select the “Driver” tab and the option to roll back, disable or enable all drivers and the option to remove the driver will also appear.

The ability to rollback becomes functional after updating the drivers. When you want to remove recently updated drivers, select this option.

There are other options for disabling or enabling the driver and they will work the other way around. If you have completely removed the driver from the system, then this option removes the driver files and driver entries in the registry.