I have an old USB device that is not recognized by windows 7, so I grabbed the device driver for the chip that handles the USB communications. After I modified it I used it to install for the device. Stupid I know, but now I need to get rid of it.
[Solved] Ethernet Controller Driver Missing after Windows 7 Install By Camilla Mo – Last Updated: 2 years ago Network issues 13 Comments After you do a complete fresh install of Windows 7, if you cannot access internet, it’s most probably that network drivers are removed.
Below is the code from the inf setup file. This does not have the VID and PID that I changed. I need to reverse all the changes it made.
3 Answers
Another option (the Microsoft way, without doing random unknown deletings in the registry) is to start CMD as 'run as admin' and then list all installed drivers in the Windows 7 driver store via:
pnputil -e
if this caused a longer list you can pipe that into a file via:
pnputil -e > C:driverexport.txt
If you have found now the driver you need to remove use the following comand:
pnputil.exe -d OemNUMBER.inf
replace NUMBER with your number from your example. You might try to use -F to force the uninstallation. Once a reboot is done the driver should be gone.
This might be also usefull to delete old drivers and get some HD space back.
If you have installed a driver for a device and you want to remove it (and the driver store) just plug in your device. Open Device Manager, right click the device and select Uninstall. There will be a box that says 'Remove driver software' - check this box and Uninstall the driver. This should remove it from the driver store and uninstall the device from the registry.
If all drivers for the device has been removed you should be able to plug it in and see that no driver loads for the device. If it does there could be multiple versions in your driver store and you go through the same steps until Windows doesn't recognize the device.
Note that the SYS file will remain in the C:WindowsSystem32drivers directory per policy, but if all devices and installations are removed that use it you can safely delete this driver as well.
While the steps mentioned in answers above may be correct, this is a significantly easier method to do it:
Download Ethernet Controller Driver Windows 7
Go to Device Manager or alternatively run the command
devmgmt.msc
Right-click the device you need to uninstall and go to Properties. Select the Details tab and then select INF Name from the drop-down list
Once you have the INF Name type in this command in a command window opened with Admin privileges
pnputil.exe -d INFName.inf
if you face issues try forced deletion
Update Drivers In Windows 7
pnputil.exe -f -d INFName.inf