Removing old drivers from Windows 10

So you have just got home from that new computer store with your fancy and all-new mouse, screen, keyboard, etc. You plugged in your new component, Windows detected it, installed drivers for it and it is working like a charm. A few months later down the road and the computer starts little by little to slow down.

Plug and play is a great concept, and automatic detection is even greater but how time passes old unused stuff piles in your hard drive and in Windows itself thus slowing down your computer and taxing it more and more as new components and software are added. Old drivers from old components sadly are not removed from Windows itself and over some larger period of time they can pile up and slow down your daily operations on the computer or even cause some problems in it.

This guide will teach you how to manually remove old unused device drivers from your Windows so it is fresh and like new again.

Making old devices visible

In order for us to remove old drivers, the first thing we must do is make them visible in our device manager, old drivers are hidden and will not show up, we must make this happen. We do this by pressing WINDOWS + X keys on your keyboard to bring up a hidden menu in Windows.

keyboard with windows and x markedOnce the menu appears, click on Command Prompt (admin)

Windows menu command prompt adminOnce the command prompt with administrator privileges comes on-screen type in it following string:

The device manager will open, go to view > snow hidden devices in order to show unused devices.

device manager show hidden devices

Removing old device

Open any category and if there is a device that was once used and still has its drivers in the system it will be shown as faded out.

device manager hidden device shownRight-click on the device and click on uninstall device to remove it completely from your system.

device manager uninstall device driverPlease always be careful when removing devices so you do not remove the device which is being used by mistake and always double-check that you are removing something that you used to have on your system. This method will show all hidden devices even ones that are hidden but crucial to the system working properly.

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Libmysql.dll is missing or not found error appears in Windows when the user is trying to open and run the application. In this guide, we will offer you solutions on how to fix and remove this annoying error.
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Error Code 0x8007007b – What is it?

This error code occurs when users fail to activate their Windows operating system. It is one of the more popular Windows error codes since it affects many versions of Windows including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10. Error code 0x8007007b has common symptoms which include the following:

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Method Two: Run System File Checker

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Solution

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Further Information and Manual Repair

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Clean Up Your Disk

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Option 1 – Try to uninstall and reinstall the language packs you’ve recently added

If you have installed a language pack recently, you have to uninstall it, restart your computer, and then reinstall it.
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Option 2 – Try to uninstall the KB updates

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Option 3 – Try to delay Windows Update

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Option 4 – Reset your computer

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