Hi All!

What happens to the old drivers when new hardware is installed?

When upgrading to a new graphics or sound card for example you get an installation disk with new drivers on it but the old drivers don’t get uninstalled. What happens to these?

Do they just sit there doing nothing yet taking up space or do they try to start up along with the new hardware causing conflict and a slowing down of the system?

Thanks

D.D.

Yes

No

Maybe

and Sometimes

but mostly all of the above.

In windows the driver is often already there and the driver install will check to see if the one they gave is older then the installed one which I have seen many times, then it doesn't even use the new driver.  If it upgrades it would leave old one for roll back driver options to use.  Some mfg don't want that because old driver of that number has bug and its removed.  Never can know for sure, but in Linux the old driver is replaced and roll back is a matter of force version if still around. edit forgot: most drivers are small and inactive one don't slow the system and those not assigned don't conflict with the ones that are.