How To: Install Drivers and Use Driver Sweeper

What Drivers Should I Use?

I would always recommend using the latest non-beta drivers for your card. You can get these from AMD's website here. Choose the 'Full Catalyst Software Suite' suitable for your operating system.


When Should I Use Beta Drivers?

Beta drivers often carry the risk of instability and can often cause more problems than they solve. They are not officially released by ATi, but instead leaked onto various websites and forums, you can usually find a download for them by searching google. Beta drivers can be useful. For example if you are having stability issues with the current drivers, the problem may be addressed in the Beta driver. They are sometimes worth a try as part of the troubleshooting process. Another reason for using Beta drivers is to get a performance boost from optimisations made in the drivers for your card.


What Are Hotfix Drivers?

Hotfix drivers are often released by ATi to fix problems in the latest drivers without having to wait until the next month for the next driver release. Using 10.1 as an example, the 10 represents the current year and the .1 represents the month. Because of this hotfixes are necessary so as not to affect the numbering scheme and not to delay essential bug-fixes. The hotfix drivers will not appear in the usual section of the AMD Game website, it is often best to search with Google for the latest hotfix. You don't really need to worry about having the latest hotfix unless you are having problems. Once you have downloaded them, it is not required to download the previous drivers as well, you can go right ahead and install them as the hotfix patch includes everything you need.


When Should I Use Driver Sweeper?

You should use Driver Sweeper whenever you install a new card in your system. Particularly if you are upgrading from nVidia to ATi, as often the two company's driver remnants can cause problems. You don't need to use Driver Sweeper when upgrading drivers, you can usually just install the new drivers on top of the old ones without issue. However if you are having significant driver problems, it is well worth uninstalling the drivers, running Driver Sweeper and reinstalling the latest drivers.


How Do I Use Driver Sweeper?

Step 1: Download and install Driver Sweeper.

Step 2: Download the latest ATi Drivers from the AMD website and save them to a memorable location as we sill need these later.

Step 3: Uninstall the current drivers through either 'Add/Remove Programs' or 'Programs and Features' depending on your operating system. You will need to select the 'ATi Catalyst Install Manager' from the remove programs screen and choose the 'Express Uninstall ALL ATI Software' option. Follow all steps until uninstall is completed.

Step 4: Reboot the PC and enter safemode by repeatedly tapping F8 quickly during the transition from POST to Windows boot.

Step 5: Run Driver Sweeper and check the boxes for 'ATi -Display' and 'nVidia - Display' -



Click the 'Analyse' button.

Step 6: You will then see a list of driver remnants on your system, click the 'Clean' button to remove them all.



Wait for the cleaning process to complete and exit Driver Sweeper.

Step 7: Reboot into normal mode and begin installing the drivers you downloaded earlier.

Step 8: Complete the installation, reboot and enjoy.


The Latest Drivers Cause Me Problems, Where Can I find Older Versions?

You can find older versions of the drivers on the FileHippo website. The Vista drivers listed are also suitable for Windows 7.


I Get An Error During Driver Installation

Firstly try a reboot, often this can help with install problems. Make sure you have tried Driver Sweeper using the steps described above. If this does not help, you can attempt to remedy this by deleting the contents of the C:\\AMD folder. You can also specify an alternative location for the extraction of the drivers during setup -



At this point it is probably worth downloading the drivers again to make sure you don't have a corrupt download.


I get a 'Catalyst Install Manager has Stopped Working' error message during install

Step 1: Navigate to C:\\AMD and choose the folder that has the latest driver in it. In this case it is 'Catalyst_9.12_Hotfix...". Open this folder up.

Step 2: Hold down the Shift key and right click in any open space. In Windows 7 and Vista, you should see the option to 'Open command window here' click this (If you are on XP, you will need to open up a CMD window by typing cmd into the run box and use the CD command to navigate to the same folder)



Step 3: Now you need to type the following, be sure to type it exactly as it appears below -
Step 4: The CCC and drivers should now install without issue.
(This section of the guide has been adapted and updated by me from the steps described on this website)

If I hold down the button my PC doesn't seem to like it, so I just repeatedly tap. I will clarify the transition from POST to Windows though.
I always analyse as I like to see what is being deleted. I will never have blind faith in a program.

I have also added a short section describing what Hotfix drivers are, which also delves into the driver numbering scheme.

If you click the link to uninstall the Install Manager, you will get the option to uninstall all of CCC, or even repair it. I may update the guide to explain this too