Hi How do I reinstall the VGA Driver? I removed the Nvidia driver from my Win2K sP4 system in order to downgrade it. After uninstalling using the supplied software, I rebooted the machine and now I get a BSOD with a video driver message. Fine, I though I would go into safe mode and fix it. No deal VGA Mode, No deal Command Line boot, no deal either. I tried all the options in F8 and nothing, I always end up with the BSOD. I was thinking of making a Windows Live CD and maybe install from there, but I wonder if there is an easier solution. I can boot this machine in Linux also, but I do not have a spare windows machine. Thanks

 Welcome to the forums.

What do you mean.. "using the supplied software" ??  Did you use something to uninstall other than Add/Remove Programs?  

What could have possibly happened, is that the removal of Nvidia's driver... may have not completely uninstalled.  Leaving a left over, corrupted driver or the uninstall process didn't re-register the use of the default driver. 

Try your Windows LiveCD, or BartPE.. if not... grab your W2K CD, start the installation process as if you were going to install fresh.  Then.. after the F8 (EULA screen) option.. choose Repair.  It wipes out W2K.. reinstalls the OS but leaves everything else intact.  However.. you'll still have to reinstall all the drivers and OS updates.

I just uninstalled from Control Panel, that's what I meant by "supplied software", i.e. Nvidia's own installer. I already tried Repair from W2K install CD but no dice. I thougt it would automagically bring back the VGA driver (even if I had to later fish for the updates) but still I get the same error. Based on what I have read so far I am not sure I can use BartPE on Win 2K, at least I cannot build one LiveCD with W2K. :( What I just did is to slipstream SP4 into my installation CD and I am planning to install from there. Otherwise I think I'll have to simply reformat it all and begin anew from plain sources :( :( I wonder how long ago this driver got corrupted that now I cannot go back to it and even the original cannot solve it. There should be a linking library where one could consult that if you have such and such file version, then you need such and such driver/files to make it all work together. One would not have to install from scratch to solve this kind of problem.

 Interesting that the Repair Install didn't work since it is an actual full installation (but it does leave the previous registry settings intact).  You might be right in assuming that this is going to require a complete wipe/ install to get the machine back up.

As far as LiveCDs go.. BartPE or even the WindowsXP LiveCD will support any file system used by W2K.  But.. even though you put the files in the correct folders, you'd still have to change the registry entries.  It's not like back in the day of Win95/98/Me where you could just boot to DOS.. use the Edit program to change the system.ini file and set the driver back to vga.sys, reboot and be done with it.

Btw, if you have W2K's "SP5" (rollup package).. you could use NLite to slipstream that before you get started.

Hi

I slipstreamed all the way to SP4. Didn't have time to figure out how to go all the way to SP5. Nevertheless it worked quite good! I saved that CD for next time (Yeah, as sure as death and taxes I know there will be a next time). When I have a little more time I will do it. Likewise for Office 2K, I did not realize that my version was before SR1a. Once I have some more time I will study (google) how to slipstream it with all the hotfixes and stuff.

This experience was weird. I have a MSI K8MM board which has an integrated VIA graphics chipset. Nevertheless, due to some games I play (Civ4) I put a GEForce 6200 card on the AGP slot. Now comes the weird part. Even when I installed W2K SP4, I had video (800x600, 16 colors), but there was an entry on device manager with a yellow dot on the "VGA " something, I forgot to write it down. After I installed the Nvidia driver, it disappeared.

Nevertheless, even before I installed the Nvidia driver, I coudl boot, etc. without any trouble.

I wonder if that was my problem, that when I uninstalled the nvidia driver It got back to this situation but somehow win2k 2p4 "forgot" what driver it used to use before.  On hindsight, I should have researched that. Sometime with more time I'll do it on a spare Hard disk.

My 2 cents.

 Does the system board happen to have onboard graphics as well as an AGP slot? 

Yellow ! or ? in the device managers typically go away once drivers are installed.. unless there's another reason for the error code.

 

Slipstreaming Office is a royal pain in the ass actually.. not sure if you can do it with Office 2000, but you can with Office XP / 2003 / 2007.   Very similar to being able to slipstream Windows 2000 and up, but not Windows NT.

Yes indeed, the system board has onboard graphics. The yellow was a yellow (!), like when it is missing a driver or something. The strange thing was that I indeed had a display and was using it despite the vga driver yellow thing. As I said, it went away once I installed the nvidia drivers. What I wonder is why did it not come back to that situation when I removed the nvidia driver the last time. Funny :( . JP

Have you tried starting the system with the onboard port? If you enable it in the BIOS it should boot up just fine. Typically, an OS has a generic driver for any given card..

I always thought the AGP card overrode any onboard card. I am not sure if I could test for it right now, I would have to re-reinstall it all again :(

Not really... simply enable it in the BIOS and plug in your cable to the motherboard port.

 When you install Windows on a computer that is using an unsupported video adapter, Windows Setup installs a standard VGA mode driver. However, after you install Windows, you may be able to obtain and install a Windows-compatible driver for your video adapter from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). If you are running Windows Vista, visit the Windows Vista Compatibility Center to find links to the latest VGA drivers.

Under some conditions, the new OEM video drivers may cause shutdown problems, or cause your computer to stop responding (hang). Because of this, you may want to remove the new OEM drivers and revert back to using the Microsoft Standard VGA drivers to help determine if the OEM drivers are causing the problem.

This article describes how to uninstall OEM video drivers and force Windows to use the Microsoft Standard VGA drivers that are included with Windows.

Note If you press F8 and choose Enable VGA Mode on the Windows Startup menu, Windows starts with a screen area of 640 by 480 pixels with low 8-bit color and uses a potentially OEM-provided video driver, not the Microsoft Standard VGA driver. However, if you choose any Safe mode options, the generic Microsoft Standard VGA driver is used with the restrictions that are noted in the following Microsoft Knowledge.........

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