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Article ID: 2278714 - Last Review: July 20, 2010 - Revision: 1.2
On all supported versions of Microsoft Windows, uninstalling a driver through device manager may not remove associated files or applications with that driver
Consider the following scenario:
You have a 3rd party driver installed on a system via the 3rd party installation
The driver installer also installs a 3rd party application or applications
You try to uninstall the driver through the Device Manager
In this scenario, the driver files, as well as the 3rd party application are not removed. Each time you reboot the machine, or any other action that forces a re-enumeration of plug and play devices, it will try to install the drivers.Â
Microsoft has confirmed that this behavior is by design.
If you have installed a 3rd party driver via a 3rd party installation , it is recommended that Add and Remove programs is used to uninstall 3rd party driver packages
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