Since a few weeks i have an ati 9800 xt. Before that i was a nvidia fan.. Now there is a new driver relase. Before installing a new ati driver, must i deinstall everytime the old one ? The ati release notes says so, but is it really the way it goes. With Nvidia drivers i never done that.

i never have.. i just install over the top that has worked for the ati all in wonder pro the ati all in wonder rage 128 pro the ati all in wonder radeon 8500dv and the ati all in wonder 9800 pro.. with no problems for me.. i think they just say that to make sure that there are no problems...

Different companies, different ways of doing things.

well.. im not ATI but.. i have never uninstalled the old ones.. i figure if it did mess up I should be able to figure out how to fix it with safe mode and whatever.. but it hasn't ever given me any problems and i have almost all of their all in wonder cards :o

You must uninstall the old drivers 1st with ATI drivers, otherwise key components do not get updated because windows has them locked down.

never locked any of mine down.. they all updated fine

I deinstalled the old ati drivers first. I had to deinstall the Ati Drivers and Control Panel and there was also a ati deinstallation program to deinstall. Beside the fact, that there were three *.dll errors during deinstallation, all worked perfect. The new driver installation was no problem. But i think the best way would be, that all should be made automatically, first the deinstallation (if necessary, some say no, some say yes) and second the installation of the new drivers and other software (control panel). Hopefully in the future....