Those Crazy Video Driver Updates

[Jason Dunn]

<p>You know, video drivers are funny things. They're incredibly important to the stability and speed of our computers, yet do this day neither ATI nor NVIDIA use Windows Update to alert me as a user that there's a driver update (with some rare exceptions on the NVIDIA site of things). Since the NVIDIA and ATI drivers come with rich control panel interfaces, with modules that tend to run at start-up, you'd think they'd have built-in update checkers. They don't, which I've always wondered about - it's a hassle to have to remember to check two Web sites for new video drivers every month. Then there's the whole installation procedure: the screen shot below shows the second of my gripes with video driver updates.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223097909.usr1.jpg" border="1" /></p><p>The problem? I run two monitors on my main workstation at 1920 x 1200 resolution. On the left monitor, I tend to have a bunch of icons - I use my desktop as my workbench, and like any good workbench, there are certain places that you put things. I have a folder called "Workspace" in the lower-left corner of every computer that I use, and I use FolderShare to keep the contents of that folder in sync across all my computers. I have shortcuts to folders inside the Workspace folder for things like "Active Articles", "Photos for Processing", and a few others. And because I have so much desktop space, I tend to group files for active projects together.<MORE /></p><p>And what happens when I install a new graphics driver? The stupid thing resets my desktop resolution to 640 x 480 during the install, cramming all my desktop shortcuts and files together in the upper left corner. Is that really the best ATI and NVIDIA can do in 2008? Come on, there has to be a better way.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1223097928.usr1.png" border="1" /></p><p>My third gripe is the way companies are including "bonus" software with driver installs now - it's one thing for Divx to pimp a browser toolbar when they're giving away a free codec, but with NVIDIA and ATI, I'm getting driver updates for a product that I paid money for. So should ATI really be offering, by default, a World of Warcraft trial? I don't mind this one quite as much because if it means their driver group can show a profit and can devote more time to better drivers, that's not a bad thing. But it shouldn't be checked off by default.</p><p>What are your video driver gripes?</p>

[jeffd]

Not being a part of windows update is a biggy imo. Although I often grab betas that are not released, but its 2008 and my Vista installations still require me to download video and audio drivers beforehand.

Also the control panels are unnecessarily bloated. I dont need visual representations for my 3d settings. Just give me windows upon windows of check boxes and im happy.

Oh yea..is it ATI that requires you to download the latest .net before installing? Yea... BS like that.

[EscapePod]

I've always received the nVidia updates through Windows Update process, and they've always worked perfectly (I don't have it set on "automatic", just "notify" me) -- except this last time. But even then, the only problem noted was that all the icons ended up in the upper left corner, as Jason also reported.

I was able to live with that (this time) because it actually gave me a chance to clear out some icons I didn't need on the desktop -- tidy up a bit.

[jacklf]

Would be nice if MS Update notified for video drivers, but not every release turns out to be stable enough for mainstream consumption, so maybe there's some reasoning to be found there.

btw, For AMD/ATI drivers, I keep an RSS reader pointed to their Catalyst release news feed:
http://www2.ati.com/rss/catalyst.rss

nVidia may have something similar.

[onlydarksets]

If you can't fix the problem, treat the symptom:
Featured Windows Download: Iconoid Manages Your Desktop Icons (http://lifehacker.com/397707/iconoid-manages-your-desktop-icons)

[Darius Wey]

I'm a bit of an update junkie, so I always love having the latest ForceWare drivers installed as soon as possible. Not having them delivered through Windows Update doesn't bother me too much. I usually subscribe to sites like FileForum and VersionTracker to stay on top of daily releases.

[alanjrobertson]

Jason - totally agree with the irritation of video driver updates, but have you tried using Ultramon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) - it has a setting to 'remember desktop icon positions' and 'restore desktop icon positions' - you can store before the update then restore afterwards. You can get a free trial from their site (I think the latest v.3.0.3 is meant to play nicer with Vista than the previous versions!).

Cheers

Alan

[onlydarksets]

Jason - totally agree with the irritation of video driver updates, but have you tried using Ultramon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) - it has a setting to 'remember desktop icon positions' and 'restore desktop icon positions' - you can store before the update then restore afterwards. You can get a free trial from their site (I think the latest v.3.0.3 is meant to play nicer with Vista than the previous versions!).

Cheers

Alan
Sounds like a payware version of what I posted above (http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f303/those-crazy-video-driver-updates-90855.html#post692874). :D

[alanjrobertson]

Sounds like a payware version of what I posted above (http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f303/those-crazy-video-driver-updates-90855.html#post692874). :D

Ahh! :) Well partially anyway - in fairness to Ultramon I've also found it very useful at improving multi-monitor support in Windows (that's its main function).

A :D