Determine current NVIDIA driver number?

[John Doe]

I am talking about the number that is on the file you get from
NVIDIA's website. After the driver has been installed, how can you
tell which driver you installed? Is there any location on the PC
that has the same number that is on the downloaded driver file
that is currently installed? There is an NVIDIA folder
(C:\NVIDIA...) in Windows Explorer that lists those numbers, but
how do you tell which one is installed?

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

I am talking about the number that is on the file you get from
NVIDIA's website. After the driver has been installed, how can you
tell which driver you installed? Is there any location on the PC
that has the same number that is on the downloaded driver file
that is currently installed? There is an NVIDIA folder
(C:\NVIDIA...) in Windows Explorer that lists those numbers, but
how do you tell which one is installed?

Thanks.

This is the first method I could come up with.

Search in C:\WINDOWS\inf for a collection of oemxx.inf files.
When hardware is installed, the INF file is renamed to oem
to confuse matters. Search in the oem files, for one with
the word Nvidia in it. That could be the file from
your video card install.

This is mine, and happens to be "oem12.inf". This is for
my 7900GT.

"; NVIDIA Windows 2000/XP Display INF file
; Copyright (c) NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.

DriverVer = 05/16/2008, 6.14.11.7519"

Parsing that, the driver looks like it is 175.19 .
And, I seem to have a 175.19 in my downloads folder.
I can't be absolutely sure that's the one I installed,
but it's my best guess right now. The other tools I tried,
left doubts.

*******

A second way to do it, I just discovered, is:

1) Open the Nvidia control panel, using the icon in the lower
right hand corner of your monitor.
2) In the Nvidia control panel, go to the Help menu.
Select "System Information".
3) When System Information panel comes up, click "About".
In the "About NVIDIA Display Control Panel" window, it
says at the top that it is version 175.19 , which matches
my other determination method.

HTH,
Paul

 

[John Doe]

A second way to do it, I just discovered, is:

1) Open the Nvidia control panel, using the icon in the lower
right hand corner of your monitor.
2) In the Nvidia control panel, go to the Help menu.
Select "System Information".
3) When System Information panel comes up, click "About".
In the "About NVIDIA Display Control Panel" window, it
says at the top that it is version 175.19 , which matches
my other determination method.

That works here too, thanks, that is better than what I was afraid
of (something like your first method).

 

[Peter]

That works here too, thanks, that is better than what I was afraid
of (something like your first method).

You can also find driver version details from within device manager. If
you right click on the device and select properties from the menu, you
then have a driver tab at the top which provides info.

 

[TVeblen]

That works here too, thanks, that is better than what I was afraid
of (something like your first method).

On my computer the nVidia drivers load into a folder -
C:\NVIDIA\DRIVERS\258.96\

If I upgrade the drivers it creates another folder in NVIDIA with the
new version number.

 

[John Doe]

(e-mail address removed) says...
You can also find driver version details from within device
manager. If you right click on the device and select properties
from the menu, you then have a driver tab at the top which
provides info.

The driver version is not the same as the file version.

 

[John Doe]

On my computer the nVidia drivers load into a folder -
C:\NVIDIA\DRIVERS\258.96\

If I upgrade the drivers it creates another folder in NVIDIA
with the new version number.

Sometimes downgrading drivers might be necessary for a reason like
compatibility. I downgraded to the original drivers on the CD that
came with my Zotac 9800 GT and that installation did not add a
subfolder to the NVIDIA folder. Then I had three NVIDIA subfolders
and none of them contained the drivers being used.

 

[TVeblen]

Sometimes downgrading drivers might be necessary for a reason like
compatibility. I downgraded to the original drivers on the CD that
came with my Zotac 9800 GT and that installation did not add a
subfolder to the NVIDIA folder. Then I had three NVIDIA subfolders
and none of them contained the drivers being used.

I always delete those old folders before installing new drivers, up or
downgrade.

When people have video driver issues I always recommend "clean
installing" the drivers. This tends to eliminate a lot of the strange,
quirky issues that come up.

To do so:
Download your preferred driver package.
Go to Start > Programs > Remove a Program in W7/Vista, ADD/Remove
Programs in XP
Uninstall PhysX and 3D programs first, then uninstall the driver. The
Control Panel will go with the driver > do not restart as requested at
this time.
Go to the C:\nVidia file folder and delete it (the whole thing).
Now restart.
On restart, windows will find the video card and install either the
standard VGA driver (XP) or the standard WDDM1.1 driver (7/V). You are
asked to restart again.
Once on the desktop you can now install the nVidia driver package "clean".

Some folks go even further and use a program like DRIVERSWEEPER to
remove all video driver remnants from the registry. You do this after
the first restart, while using the generic drivers. I don't feel this
step is necessary unless you are switching video engines, from AMD/ATI
to nVidia, or vice-versa.

Hope that helps

 

[John Doe]

In case anyone is lost in this thread branch, you can determine
which NVIDIA driver is installed by following this path...

Control Panel -- NVIDIA Control Panel -- Help -- System
Information -- Display -- Graphics card information -- Details