How to Remove a Monitor Driver

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Computer monitors come in a variety of sizes.

A computer monitor is one of the most important output devices because it allows us to actually see real-time visual output from the computer. The output we see on the monitor's screen is controlled by a small piece of software called a driver. A driver is simply a piece of software that tells the computer the best way to communicate with a device, whether it is a monitor, sound card, video card, or something else. However, if a monitor driver becomes corrupted or perhaps an update was installed that didn't communicate very well with your particular monitor version, the result can be catastrophic, and the driver must be removed. Bad monitor drivers can result in everything from poor resolution to distorted images or no image at all.

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Step 1

Windows Vista control panel

Click on the Start menu button in the lower left-hand corner of the desktop and select the 'Control Panel' option to bring up the Control Panel.

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Step 2

Device Manager icon in Windows Vista

Select the Device Manager icon from the available options within the Control Panel.

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Step 3

Monotor Properties with Drivers tab selected

Select "Monitors" from within the Device Manager dialog window. There will be a list of monitors (probably only one) under this expandable menu. Select your monitor from this list. This will open another window with several tabs. Select the driver tab from within this window.

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Step 4

Select the option that you would like to perform with this driver version. You can choose to update the driver, roll back to a previous driver or uninstall the driver. Any of these options will actually uninstall the driver, but the first two will replace it right away with another driver of your choice. If you follow through with an actual uninstall of the driver, you must have a CD that contains another driver for the device as it will begin re-installing the monitor as a new device after reboot.

Step 5

Reboot the computer to ensure that all changes were made correctly and that the monitor driver that you selected is operating properly.

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