How to Stop Windows XP from Changing Video Driver

[SteveJ34]

I have a system I am working on for a friend, same old story, different day....

Socket 478 motherboard was bad so put in a ASUS P4P800SE and ATI Radeon 7500 from spare parts on hand.

Reinstall XP SP2 .... XP loads a "Radeon 7500 (Microsoft Corporation)" driver during system load.

This driver will produce black screen upon boot after windows logo.

Boot into safe mode, uninstall display driver, boot normal, load ATI driver, and then reboot.

System boots fine ONCE with the ATI Driver I have installed.

Then on its own XP will find MS driver and replace the ATI driver I have installed with the MS one.

How can I prevent XP from replacing the display driver I have installed?

[SavannahLion]

This is going to sound bizarre, but I encountered a computer exhibiting similar problems. Except I was never able to get the PC to boot with drivers I would install, it would just black out on first try then revert to different drivers. When I took the computer back to the shop, the problems went away. It took several days but I finally figured out it was the monitor, not the drivers. Apparently, if the monitor is not "signed" my MS, you get these problems. I wasn't getting the problems at the shop because I was using a different, and ironically much older, monitor

Unfortunately, I don't recall how I resolved it. I believe it's an MSDN article where you need to force XP to allow you to use unsigned hardware.

Try using a different monitor (not the same model or brand) and see if the problem goes away.

[Rabbi Bob]

• Check to see if automatic updates is on. 
• If so, turn it to manual for the time being.
• Remove the MS video driver.  (May need to even remove the associated .inf file from C:\WINDOWS\inf if Windows keeps re-finding it)
• Reinstall the intended driver.
• Reboot as needed
• Manually check the MS updates.  Look for the video driver update and uncheck it.  This should keep XP from re-fetching it.
• Finish the updates and then turn Auto Update back on.

I'm off on vacation for a week, I'll check back when I return :)

[MrMojoZ]

Rabbi Bob's method should work if the default windows driver is the culprit.

[Rabbi Bob]

IIRC, like most manufacturers, there is a drivers install directory and the OS will reference it when looking for drivers.  You can also blow away the inf/ directory in the Windows directory so it can't pull the drivers in from itself (or search the files until you find the one that it is referencing specifically), but be ready to reload anything that is missing (i.e. make a note of the installed devices and make sure you have drivers handy).

Personally I can't see any good reason to use the manufacturer's install.  Check the Dell website for the model and drivers (if you have a USB thumbdrive, download the installers to it, it'll save time later).  Install a fresh XP on the system, install only the drivers you need (read up on speeding up XP by removing unnecessary services and using reg tweaks) at first boot time: Don't let XP auto install anything you don't have to!.  Making an image of the drive is not a bad idea once you have a good base setup!

I think I heard on a TWiT podcast that you can actually pay a little extra to not have all the crap that comes installed by default on the system when you buy them (one of the reasons I do clean installs myself), but tossing in an XP install CD and running it only takes a few minutes these days.

YMMV!