Do you still manually uninstall graphics drivers when updating them?

I mostly use DDU on my AMD cards(been burned more than once in the past,lol) , but on my NVidia one , I mostly do the clean install thing..
Guru 3D always puts up a clean version of new drivers,so I just get them from there

EDIT;
I also have used in the past the following guides posted here in OCN for thorough driver/registry unistall,since DDU sometimes borked my AMD gpu setup ,albeit in the past

Nvidia
AMD

Props to @BradleyW for the guides btw - they're worth a look

Only run DDU if I have issues, which is rare.

Hi,
Yep that's where the .zip file came from obviously
I just didn't have a link for it thanks for that good little utility

Usually a new driver install is all that's necessary but if they borked that you may need to DDU all GPU drivers out and then restart, have Windows install it's own driver on boot up whether you want to or not and then you can install your own Nvidia standard or DCH driver. Don't know if AMD has DCH now too. You can't really disable Windows to not install it's own driver which for NV cards is often some month old official driver, you could probably on a clean install with no internet but that's the only way. To switch from DCH to standard driver there is a guide on TPU for that but it's not necessary and simply install DCH version on newer GPUs, at least on Turing default driver is DCH, on Pascal now probably too. So if you DDU then Windows will likely install a DCH driver now.

I always use DDU from safe mode. Otherwise good luck wiping it all.

I don't use the driver slimmers that modify the driver package to cut out stuff from it. You are bound to have issues with that sooner or later either from missing features/drivers or infection in drivers because someone made the tool with crap in it. No thanks to infected driver code. I never install GFE and usually do clean install even though that option doesn't exactly work 100% either. Do I need all the extra non graphical drivers? Maybe not, maybe sometimes, maybe on day. HDMI audio, physx, ... all these are used at some time.

DDU. Always DDU. It's the only method that hasn't presented any issues for me in the past.

I just install the new drivers through Geforce Experience. I don't even bother with the "clean install" option anymore. Just customize install, deselect 3dvision and hdmi audio and all that junk, and go. Ive been rebooting afterwards since it feels weird not rebooting after a driver install, but maybe I'll break myself of that habit eventually. I've never had any issues doing it this way.

The only time I can remember using DDU in the last... decade? was maybe 6 months ago when I was trying to figure out why my 1070 SLI setup kept running 40% power and 3d clocks while browsing the internet. Came across someone claiming running DDU and safemode and all that junk then installing new drivers fixed it for them. I was so desperate I gave it a shot. Didn't fix anything.

Oh I didnt know about guru3d having slimmed down drivers. Interesting.

Hi,
Yep nvslimmer is really good regardless of what some critics that have never used it say

My 2 cents building PC's for the past 19 years:

It's a good practice to USE DDU when:

- You are changing the card generation
- The new driver have something new introduced or a big change (usually then the main version changes, like 416 to 417 and so on). You can find the changes on the release notes always.
- When you were experiencing ANY bug with the driver and want to test another version or is updating to one that has a stated fix for the specific issue.

When is just an minor update, no DDU is needed (but if you run into issues, then DDU and install again)

1. run DDU in safe mode
2. ^^ with network cable unplugged or NIC disabled
3. boot into windows and choose custom install
4. only install vid driver and physics driver
5. select clean install

^^ is for diagnosing. In general, it is an option that can't hurt to do.

Also note that the nVidia driver has evolved several ways (several years ago) that caused less of a need for a DDU; and back (now) to more of a need for it.