How To Clean Up Windows Driver Store
When you install or update device drivers in Windows, older driver versions are nevertheless stored in the arrangement. Thus, a user can roll back to the previous driver version if the new driver is unstable (a useful opportunity, as in the case of rolling back a Wi-Fi driver). All the same, Windows does not automatically clean and delete old driver versions, and so as the fourth dimension goes the size of disk space occupied by drivers becomes quite large. In this article, we'll hash out how to remove old driver versions (duplicates) using the integrated organisation tools (without whatsoever third-office software).
Windows stores all commuter files in its driver repository (Driver Store) located in %WINDIR%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository. In my case on my home laptop running Windows seven (installed near 8 years ago), FileRepository folder occupies well-nigh 11 GB and contains over 5,000 files. It'due south a adept many! In particular, over 20 Nvidia commuter versions are stored here.
Contents:
Important!
- Never delete any files from DriverStore manually.
- Prior to clearing up the Driver Store, it is strongly recommended that y'all create a system restore bespeak (
Checkpoint-Computer -Description "BeforeDriversDelete") or back upwardly your system image. - After cleaning the storage, y'all may accept to download and install drivers manually if a new device is connected.
How to Detect and Delete Old Driver Versions in Windows seven
Allow'south see how to find and delete obsolete drivers in Windows 7. (In Windows 8 and Windows ten, easier ways to delete old drivers are used, these are described beneath).
Get the listing of all third-party drivers available in the system and consign them to a text file. To practise information technology, run the following command in the command prompt with the administrator privileges:
dism /online /get-drivers /format:table > c:\tmp\drivers.txt
Import this text file into Excel, and delete all odd information in a fashion that but the table containing the list of drivers in the repository is left. The table should incorporate the number of the driver in the organisation (oemXXX.inf), the name of the original INF file, device grade, manufacturer, installation appointment and commuter version.
Sort this table by column B (containing the name of the original INF file) and column F (driver installation engagement). Among the drivers with the same proper name mark for removal all driver versions except the last ane. In my case, you tin see that the most part of old drivers are refer to the NVIDIA video adapter.
To delete a driver, you can use pnputil command:
pnputil.exe -d oemxxx.inf
Note . In some cases, you must delete a driver merely using just strength –f: pnputil -f -d oemxxx.inf
To make it more than user-friendly, nosotros will create in the empty column the commands to remove each commuter using the formula: =CONCATENATE("pnputil.exe -d ";A21)
Copy and run these commands in the command prompt or a BAT file.
pnputil.exe –d oem9.inf
Microsoft PnP Utility
Driver packet deleted successfully
Thus, I have deleted about 40 sometime commuter versions and freed most viii GB of space (mostly due to removing of NVIDIA drivers).
How to Delete Sometime Drivers in Windows 10/eight Using Deejay Cleanup
In Windows 10 / 8.i, there is a more user-friendly tool to delete earlier commuter versions — familiar Disk Cleanup tool (cleanmgr.exe) that likewise allows to delete deprecated updates.
Notation . In Windows 10 and Windows eight Upd 1, there is an opportunity to export all third party drivers from the system to a divide directory using PowerShell.
Cleanmgr will delete all old unused driver versions. Nonetheless, you should understand that the Roll back commuter push in Commuter Backdrop tab of Device Manage will become inactive.
Source: http://woshub.com/how-to-remove-unused-drivers-from-driver-store/
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