Accidentally uninstalled NVIDIA driver

[hankas]

Hi, 

I own a laptop, HP Envy 15 j018tx. The original operating system was Windows 8 64-bit. Now it is running Windows 10. As of a few days ago, it was upgraded to Windows 10 version 2004. My NVIDIA gpu is GT 740M.

Originally, I had a minor issue with NVIDIA driver. When I opened Geforce Experience, it kept nagging about needing a driver update for the in-game overlay or something, but when I tried to update, it said that the driver was already up-to-date. It was nothing serious, but was quite a nuisance to me. So I looked it up in the internet, it appears that NVIDIA has dropped the support for its Keppler-based GPUs, but somehow the Geforce Experience updates the driver using the latest drivers meant for the Maxwell-based GPUs. The incompatibility between the drivers for the Maxwell and the Keppler-based GPUs caused my issue.  Then, I uninstalled NVIDIA and its driver hoping to reinstall them with the proper driver for GT 740M (which is Keppler-based) from NVDIA website. The problem is that I can't reinstall the driver after removing it. My NVIDIA GPU isn't detected in the Device Manager, and the installer from NVIDIA refuses to work because it doesn't support my version of Windows.

Here is the list of things that I have tried:

1. Reinstall the driver from NVIDIA website. The installer says it doesn't support my version of operation system. 
2. Update drivers via Windows Update. Windows Update says there is nothing to update.
3. Revert back using System Restore. System Restore restored a bunch of things, but not the NVIDIA driver that I deleted. The restore point was at the point before I deleted the driver.
4. Driver re-installation using HP Recovery. The installation process went smoothly, but nothing seemed to get re-installed. The Device Manager still does not detect my NVIDIA card. 
5. Re-install the NVIDIA driver from HP website for my product. The original installer was built for Windows 8. It fails to install because it does not support my current operating system.

I haven't tried Windows Reset, but I try to avoid it because I no longer have the license keys and the installation disks for some of the software I have.

The way I see it, the problem with NVIDIA installers is that they have this operating system validation check prior to installation. If there is a way to install the raw driver without that validation check, it would be great. I wonder whether HP have such file. 

I did manage to extract the content of the NVIDIA driver installer, but I am confused which of the inf files would be relevant to my case.

Anybody has any solution to my problem?

Thanks.

Henry  

[hankas · Accepted solution]

The issue has been resolved. 

For those who encountered similar problems, apparently Windows did not do a good job in removing the display driver. There were some leftover items that prevented the reinstallation of the driver. I ended up using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) by Wagnard to clean up the  mess.  After that, the Windows automatically detected the device and downloaded the required driver.

Here is what I did:

1. Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) by Wagnard
2. Boot into Safe Mode
3. Run DDU in Safe Mode. Choose the GPU type. Clean and restart. Don't forget to set Windows to automatically download the required drivers.
4. The computer will automatically restart after the clean up is completed.
5. Open Device Manager, the device should be detected there.
6. Select the device, and choose update driver.