Leaving NVIDIA ProgramData subdirectories intact doesn't fully uninstall NVIDIA driver

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Zabo4
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Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:03 am

Leaving NVIDIA ProgramData subdirectories intact doesn't fully uninstall NVIDIA driver

Post by Zabo4 »

This is a bit of a rock and a hard place issue.

I hit an issue that was related to NVIDIA drivers not being completely cleaned up even when using DDU.

A side effect of the fix for DDU breaks CUDA installation seems to have involved not removing "C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation". Unfortunately this means that if you change permissions slightly (NVIDIA drivers depend on having write/create permission given to all local users - current user and the "Network Service" user, perhaps others). If the ACLs are altered slightly (in my case when attempting to harden against unprivileged users being able to write to EXEs that are run by privileged users this can leave the system in a state where the NVIDIA drivers will not work correctly even after a DDU + install since the installer doesn't alter permissions if the folder is already created.

I think the better solution from DDU's end is to keep the current 18.0.0.5 behavior that preserves this folder (to avoid breaking CUDA SDK) but perhaps inform the user that there's some additional removal to be done or that some other tools (SDK) or files (SDK's files) are blocking the removal of this directory so that users manually remove or rename it. One thing that'd be very unexpected for me would be if DDU changed the permissions but kept the folder (I'd expect that from a repair tool perhaps, but not from an uninstaller).

Leaving NVIDIA ProgramData subdirectories intact doesn't fully uninstall NVIDIA driver

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Wagnard
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Re: Leaving NVIDIA ProgramData subdirectories intact doesn't fully uninstall NVIDIA driver

Post by Wagnard »

Zabo4 wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:19 am This is a bit of a rock and a hard place issue.

I hit an issue that was related to NVIDIA drivers not being completely cleaned up even when using DDU.

A side effect of the fix for DDU breaks CUDA installation seems to have involved not removing "C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation". Unfortunately this means that if you change permissions slightly (NVIDIA drivers depend on having write/create permission given to all local users - current user and the "Network Service" user, perhaps others). If the ACLs are altered slightly (in my case when attempting to harden against unprivileged users being able to write to EXEs that are run by privileged users this can leave the system in a state where the NVIDIA drivers will not work correctly even after a DDU + install since the installer doesn't alter permissions if the folder is already created.

I think the better solution from DDU's end is to keep the current 18.0.0.5 behavior that preserves this folder (to avoid breaking CUDA SDK) but perhaps inform the user that there's some additional removal to be done or that some other tools (SDK) or files (SDK's files) are blocking the removal of this directory so that users manually remove or rename it. One thing that'd be very unexpected for me would be if DDU changed the permissions but kept the folder (I'd expect that from a repair tool perhaps, but not from an uninstaller).
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback.
I would like to know why DDU didnt removed the "C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation folder. Do you have the CUDA SDK? if not, I would like ot know what reside in this folder of yours after a DDU run, Also having the DDU logs would be as good too if you can send it to me at [email protected]

Regards,
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