"The system has not been modified." When installing Nvidia drivers

[cart0181]

Hello everyone at Tom's, the best website on the internet for all things hardware! (imho)
I'm hoping the Forums here are as helpful as the rest of the site. I believe this is my first new thread here, so here it goes. Please see my Hardware configuration in my profile for additional background on my setup.
The FACTS: (as best I know them)
■I had been using this card for a couple months without any problems.
■The problem started because I wanted to use Nview (or whatever it's called) so I could use transparent windows and the like, but I couldn`t find it installed.
■I believe I may have tried to install the latest driver without removing the old one first.
■Now, I am unable to get any drivers to load for the card.
■In Device Manager, the device appears as a Video Controler (VGA Compatible) with a yellow exclamation point.
■When I run any of the latest driver installer packages, everything appears to install correctly, but on the final page, instead of getting a "success" message, I get the message below:
"Installshield Wizard Complete"
"The system has not been modified. To install this program at a later time, run the installation again."
Then, it asks me to reboot at which point the card is re-detected by windows and the process begins again.
■I have tried using Driver Heaven`s Driver Cleaner software in an effort to resolve this problem to no avail.
■At some point, I even remember getting a BSOD which said: DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS and it mentioned the file: nv4_mini.sys
■I have also tried disabling anti-virus before attempting the install.
■I have also tried using safe-mode to install.

Please help me as I have tried everything I know how to do (and then some) on this problem. I don`t know where to go from here, aside from reformatting my hard drive, or doing a repair install of windows (which I desperately want to avoid).

 

[rayzor]

Welcome aboard! ok, first of all, make absolutely sure your new drivers are for the hardware you are using. (It looks like you have an nvidia card, but just for future reference, you should include relevant hardware in your request post )

You can go to their website and find the appropriate drivers with their drop down menus. Once you download, an icon for installing the drivers should appear on your desktop.

Next, (if you are using vista at least) you should go to start->control panel->programs and features and find NVIDIA Drivers in the programs list. You'll want to uninstall this 'program' before you do anything else. Then you should restart your computer. (you may or may not be prompted to do this when you uninstall the driver). When windows loads back up, don't let it automatically install new hardware. Now you can try installing the new driver.

This should work, but if it doesn't, let us know and we'll go from there. But you should always uninstall the old drivers first just to be safe.

 

[Hialmar]

Hello,

Finally I found some one with same problem as myself!
I have also a Nvidia (Geforce 7900GS on Dell with Vista) and experience exactly same problem with that card. Problem also appeared after driver update. I did also all I could to desinstall it corretly (driver cleaner etc) before. Also stuck with the standard win driver...impossible to finish installation correctly as you described...need healp also, pleaaase!!! Dell is unable to sort it out seems so.
Also Razor, this I already tried it as first step but how to you block Vista using it's standard Nvidia driver as it loads it even before the start page?

 

[dokk2]

Having problems uninstalling STUFF ???
Get yourself a copy of your uninstaller pro [also workz with Vista] [Me2]
It's a lifesaver when you first use it hit the autofix button at the bottom and it will clean up all half assed in/uninstallz,great little program,better than add/remove junk....

 

[cart0181]

Wow, okay I guess I was hoping for a little more than that out of you wonderful and talented folks here at Tom's Forums... That's okay, I'll give you another chance and reserve my judgement. It must be a fluke.

Hialmar ,I have made some progress with my (our?) problem. I have determined beyond a shadow of a doubt, the problem lies with permissions. More specifically, permission to access critical areas of the registry. How do I know this, you may ask? Well, sigh... hehe. I "experimented" with the registry editor, of course, knowing full well, it is never a good idea to do that. I used regedit 's search function to look for any references to 'nvidia' in the registry. For every key I came to, I checked the permissions (by right clicking and selecting permissions). I made sure that "full control" was granted to my user account if it was listed. The first time I goofed up and made too many changes, so I used system restore to undo. The second time was the charm. I must have made all the right permission changes to allow the driver to properly register itself. I attempted the install again and voila! it completed successfully!

The problem continues, however... *evil grin*
I recently purchased a new upgraded video card, but I wanted to wait to put it in until I got this software/permissions conflict resolved. This time, the card is an ATI card, instead of Nvidia. Guess what? Yep, the install failed! I have no doubt in my mind it failed due to access permissions in the registry. So, now my question is, without doing what I did before, going through the registry with a fine toothed comb, searching for any references for 'ati' or 'catalyst' this time, is there a way to fix this problem once and for all? Can I somehow reset all permissions for my user account? I fear that at any time these goofed up permissions could rear their ugly head in strange new ways when installing any new piece of hardware, or even software for that matter. Even though I found a "workaround" for this problem, I don't consider this matter resolved. I'm still on the lookout for a real "solution." That's where I'm once again turning to the aid of the gurus here on Tom's Forums. Please Help!!!!

<----------Edit: By the way, you can view my (and anyone's) hardware configuration by clicking "more informations" over there to the left, and then clicking "view his configuration."

 

[rayzor]

Wow, okay I guess I was hoping for a little more than that out of you wonderful and talented folks here at Tom's Forums... That's okay, I'll give you another chance and reserve my judgement. It must be a fluke.


<----------Edit: By the way, you can view my (and anyone's) hardware configuration by clicking "more informations" over there to the left, and then clicking "view his configuration."

What exactly were you hoping for...us to visit you in person and fix your problem? Look man, we don't get paid to do this! Believe me when I say that it get's REALLY frustrating to fix a problem when you are trying all these crazy solutions and there is something simple you have overlooked. To illustrate: A friend once asked me for help because his 'video card wasn't working.' I asked him multiple times if he had checked all the cables and he said yes. So we opened the case, swapped cards, etc... After nothing worked I said, 'are you SURE you checked all the cables?' Turns out, we wasted about an hour of our time because he was too lazy to check the vga cable that WASN'T connected to the monitor, and just lied to me and said he had already done it.

Now, we'll be more than happy to help you if you just work with us and if we tell you to do something you've already tried, then tell us that you've already tried it! In fixing computer problems, you rule out the obvious first. Until you have followed my above advice, I don't want to waste my valuable time chasing potentially fruitless leads if all along you were not willing to follow the correct driver installation procedure from the beginning...no hard feelings?

So, seeing that you have tried what I said, we can move on. I'm assuming you both have administrator access? I have seen somewhat similar problems crop up as a result of certain anti-virus programs, but you said you had disabled those. You may want to try going to start->run-> and type 'msconfig'. Use this tool to make sure that all aspects of your virus scanning software are temporarily disabled so you can try. I wish i had time to explain exactly what to do right now, but i've gotta run, i'll try to follow up later. Anyway, my software expertise gets somewhat limited beyond this point, and others on this board will be more helpful in this department.

As to your setup information, i would swear i looked yesterday and you hadn't posted anything yet, but maybe i was hallucinating...

best of luck!

 

[Shadow703793]

Uninstall drives. Then reinstall them. If every thing fails just use System Restore to go back in time. or reinstall Windows.

Use this to completely remove the drivers:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

 

[cart0181]

Hey rayzor, sorry if I offended you. That comment was more directed at the people who DIDN'T post (or those that spam ads, ehem). At least you were helping. And to be specific, yes, I did try to uninstall the drivers from add/remove programs. Also, not included anywhere in my previous posts is my OS. whoops! It's Windows XP Professional SP2 with all the latest updates. By the way, I updated my hardware configuration immediately after I posted this question, so you may not have been hallucinating.

@shadow- please see bullet point #7 in my original post... "I have tried using Driver Heaven`s Driver Cleaner software in an effort to resolve this problem to no avail."

 

[eagles453809]

probably the last thing that you feel like doing but have you thought of reformatting? i hate doing it myself but i find things just seem to work better especially when upgrading hardware. If all else fails you could try that.

 

[cart0181]

Okay, I'm sorry, but I have to post this:
Please don't respond without reading my original post. You're not doing anyone a favor (except for adding +1 to your total post count).

Thanks for the bump though!

 

[rayzor]

aww, no worries, you didn't offend me! Sorry if my tone was excessively flippant. Anway...boy, I am really the wrong person to ask about administrator settings on xp professional. Hopefully someone else will chime in at this point?

 

[I800C0LLECT]

I would try uninstalling the "VGA Card". Running one of those aforementioned driver clean up methods. And then attempt to install using the latest.

It just sounds like your OS is confusing combinations of older and newer video card drivers. Even if it is a registry issue it should be cleared up with the proper driver removal tools as they should erase any old entries for a "clean" install of video card drivers.

If you don't want to try all that then just force a new driver instead of using the installation wizard which would allow you to bypass the safety switch that's ruining your installation.

 

[I800C0LLECT]

I thought Nvidia had an automatic driver cleanup built into their installation package?

 

[eagles453809]

cart, i did read your original post and notice what i said, "If all else fails you could try that"... so cart, please dont respond without reading my post thanks.

 

[eagles453809]

and btw, seems to me that you have tried everything. believe me ive been there done that, having problems that just wont seem to go away on my computer. sometimes the only solution is to just reformat. maybe if you didnt have such a cocky tone when someone tries offering their advice (last i checked you did come in here looking for it) you might realize that were trying to help you, but if you dont want it then piss off.

 

[Hialmar]

Hi,
thanks for the feedback. I tried again to uninstall / use Driver cleaner pro / deleting etc. Results is still same and even worse as the basic Microsoft Nvidia has also been removed and the card does not work properly at all now (the fan makes hell of noise and display is VGA). So I restaured the system...
Cart seems your direction is the only working one (4u at least) but I am not so familiar with regedit so I do not really know how to proceed. When I launch a search on Nvidia nothing really seems to come out..it opens hundreds of folders on lef side and only one file on right side an none has nvidia name or so...
Strange story...but thanks all for trying to help!

 

[eagles453809]

again as i said, if it won't go away. REFORMAT

 

[Shadow703793]

........

@shadow- please see bullet point #7 in my original post... "I have tried using Driver Heaven`s Driver Cleaner software in an effort to resolve this problem to no avail."

Sorry man, didn't see that. Looks like Re formating is your best bet right now.

 

[cart0181]

Okay guys, Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help. Sometimes I'm pretty stubborn and like to do things the hard way. I find that I learn more that way, while causing myself a great deal of frustration at the same time. Thanks to your urgings, I'm finally going to listen to "reason" and just do a low-level format and clean install of Windows. Yes, I am aware of the non-destructive repair install, but I've been putting this off long enough.
If you're interested in reading about the repair install method see this link:
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

To follow up on my previous post, though, I'm going to have to eat my words where I said:

This time, the card is an ATI card, instead of Nvidia. Guess what? Yep, the install failed! I have no doubt in my mind it failed due to access permissions in the registry.

I no longer believe the problem with the new ATI card was due to registry access permissions. I tried using the drivers that were on the CD that was packaged with the card (v7.1), and they loaded fine. I had been trying to use the latest version (v8.1) of Catalyst which I downloaded from ATI, and it wasn't working. After I had success with the CD drivers, I attempted to update to the new version, and it was a "no go" again. Why not just keep with v7.1? Well, a game I wanted to play wasn't working with v7.1 and there's just something about being able to update my drivers which is nice to be able to do.
But why don't I think the problem was with the permissions? Well, I came across this article from one of my favorite MS MVP's Ramesh on how to reset all registry permissions back to default and gave it a try:
http://winonline.blogspot.com/2005/11/reset-entire-registry-permissions-to.html
It is a very interesting method, which looks like it has helped a lot of people get IE7 to install, among other helps. Unfortunately, it did not solve my problem, but I thought someone from here might be interested.

@Hialmar- Hopefully this will help you, it's what worked for me, but I make no guarantees man. Messing with the registry can be risky (as in, you may have to reinstall windows). System Restore makes this pretty safe though:
1. Start>Run>regedit [enter]
2. Make sure "My Computer" is highlighted at the top of the Registry Editor
3. File>Export... Save as old.reg (this saves a backup copy in case you need to import later)
4. Ctrl+F "nvidia" without quotes [Find Next]
5. On the right you will see the reference to nvidia highlighted, but that's not really what you're interested in. What you really wanted to know is what "Folder" it was in. So, on the left, right click the "Folder" (actually called a Key) and click Permissions...
6. Now look for the name of your User Account listed. If it's there, click on it and then make sure "Full Control" is checked in the "Allow" column down below. Click [OK]. Keep in mind you have a backup saved, and you're not changing that much here so you should be alright.
7. Ctrl+F again, [Find Next] and repeat steps 5-7 until you've made it through the entire registry. There may be several references, I'd say I had about 20 or so. Good Luck and welcome to registry hacking! As you may know, there are lots of cool things you can do and changes to the way windows behaves that you can make from regedit.

 

[cart0181]

Oh, by the way, the reason I was so hesitant to reinstall is because my windows CD is very outdated (as in pre-SP1) and I have a TON of software installed. I'm going to make myself a new CD though, before I install, with all the latest updates and Service Packs. If you're interested in finding out more about this process of Slipstreaming and setting up an unattended install. Check the link below:
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

 

[Hialmar]

Finally I got time to go back to that problem...and YESSS! Found the solution;

I tried the registery thing but all folders had already full access. Then i found a post with same type of problem but on another dirver.
solution is to activate "InstallDriver Table Manager" service.
- Right-click on My Computer and choose Manage.
- Then expand the Services and Applications section and click on Services.
- On the right-side of the screen, find the entry for InstallDriver Table Manager and double-click on it.
At this stage mine was on Manual and stopped. I just clicked on on Start.

Close all the stuff / run the driver setup / and it works!

Why? I do not know...

thanks cart and other for the help and I hope this thread can help others.

 

[Nizozemac]

Hello People,

Im experiencing the Nvidia system has not been modified error as well. I've tried it with Driver sweeper and Hailmars way. But nothing seems to work.

Anyone knows whats wrong?


on Vista 32-bit // Acer Aspire x3200/ AMD Athlon Dual core processor 4450e 2,3 Ghz
4GB RAM/ Nvidia Geforce 9300 GE 256 MB/ Acer 22" Lcd Monitor

 

[Guest]

The solution is very simple.Just right click on my computer>>properties>>device manager>>display adapter>>update driver>>select the folder that you've unpackted the driver software from nvidia and voila, that's all.

 

[Wrecks]

I think a good rule of thumb for drivers is to uninstall the old one first. There should never be any problems this way.

Permissions / admin access is up to the individual to make sure they have that under control.

 

[mrselfdestruct]

Hey, I have been having similar problems. I installed my BFG9800GT fine, the driver package even installed the PhysX drivers. No problem.

Came to my comp a few days later and the games were running slow, so I decided to re-install the drivers. I removed old ones 1st, rebooted and started the install process. This is when I came up against "the system has not been modified" and when I try and install thru device manager I get "The parameter is incorrect"

I have tried everything as far as I know (including everything above) and I'm still stumped.

I'm getting to the point where I think its the card that is kaput!

Just one thing...When windows finds the card (everytime it boots up) it comes up and finds VGA Controller. Shouldn't it find VGA Adaptor 1st?? The adaptor doesnt appear.

thx baz