How to Uninstall Drivers and Programs

This guide will show you how to uninstall programs. If you are uninstalling and reinstalling your drivers as part of troubleshooting, this guide will show you how to do it.

If you are having issues with your system, it's often a good idea to go through and uninstall any programs or drivers that may be interfering. Focus on programs that are running in the background (The more they do on the system, the more likely they are to cause issues for you. Anti-virus programs specifically can often cause system issues if they are corrupted). If you uninstall a program, make sure to test to see if the issues are resolved BEFORE you reinstall them.

When you are uninstalling drivers it's often good to have the new drivers downloaded and ready to reinstall. You may want to skip to the link at the bottom of this page to get those drivers downloaded and ready and then come back when you are ready to uninstall the old drivers.

Programs and Features

Windows 8.1/Windows 10: Right click on the start menu, and it will bring up a list of choices. Choose the top option. It will either say "Apps and Features" or "Programs and Features". If it brings up "Apps and Features" on the top right side there should be an option that says "Programs and Features". Choose that one.

Windows 7: you can either get to Programs and Features through the Control Panel, or by searching for it in the search bar on the start menu.

Once you get into the Programs and features, you'll want to find the problem drivers or the drivers you are wanting to uninstall. (Note that if you are wanting to uninstall network drivers or LAN drivers, you'll want to download the new ones BEFORE you uninstall the old ones; otherwise you may lose internet and have no way of getting those drivers!)

To uninstall programs or drivers all you have to do is right click on them and choose the option that says either "Change" or "Uninstall". It will then walk you through the removal process for that program or driver.

If you are trying to uninstall drivers but you are not able to identify which items they are then you'll want to continue onto the option below showing you how to download and install the new drivers. Once you have them downloaded you can search for each one by it's matching name in order to uninstall them.