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Fully utilize the minimal installer feature

Samuel edited this page Jun 13, 2024 · 15 revisions

You've heard about it, but unsure about what it'll do? This tutorial will help you understand how it works, and how to correctly utilize it.

NVIDIA drivers come with telemetry and bloatware, but I've made it possible so that you can remove it from the installer, which requires a supported extract library (see README for compatibility list) in order to extract the self-extracting archive, which if used will only extract the core GPU drivers. (no Physics, HD Audio, Geforce Experience, 3D drivers, etc).

What I recommend if you've previously installed drivers using GFE or by manually going to NVIDIAs website, is that you perform a full driver wipe using a tool known as DDU. This will get rid of every driver and NVIDIA component. After the system is clean of drivers we install our cleaned driver.

1. Download, perform a minimal extract and save the drivers using TNUC (without installing)

  1. Use TNUC to download the latest driver, but do not install it. Choose "Download Only" when prompted. If TNUC says you don't need to update, run it again with the --force-dl argument using a terminal (such as CMD), which will force the update.

Note: if you don't have the minimal install feature enabled yet, you must do the following first:

  1. Open %localappdata%\Hawaii_Beach\TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker\app.config with your text editor of choice
  2. Set the value of Minimal install to true
  3. Save your changes

2. Fully uninstall current drivers

DDU preview

Please read the DDU instructions on their forum, too.

  1. Download Display Driver Uninstaller
  2. Disable internet connection
  3. Extract the software
  4. Run it, and ignore the warning message
  5. Select NVIDIA to the right, if needed
  6. Press on the button that says Clean and do NOT restart

3. Install new drivers

  1. Go to the folder where you saved the graphics drivers, and run setup.exe (do NOT run the long-named driver file!)

Now you should be clean from any 'bloatware' and bullshit that comes with the graphics drivers come with these days.