Last Updated on January 15, 2022
Recently, NVIDIA pushed an update for the latest 1000 series graphics cards compatible with the Windows 10-anniversary update. Unfortunately, for many users who are on the latest Windows 10-anniversary update, this update is not installed. Windows show that the graphics driver is not compatible with Windows 10. Because of this, there is no way to really install the latest drivers by using the normal driver installer.
All this is happening because, with the new update, Windows has changed how the drivers are recognized by the OS. All the drivers being installed now need to be WHQL certified. The drivers which are not WHQL certified will just not simply install. You can fix all this mess by removing the older drivers from your PC. Generally manually removing them from Program and settings is fine, but for a thorough removal, I use the Display Driver Uninstaller. After that, you can use the Windows update to find and automatically install the drivers. If they are not present there, just manually install them. Continue reading below for the step by step instructions.
Remove old drivers with DDU
Download the latest version of the Display Driver Uninstaller on your PC. Open the DDU exe file and select NVIDIA in the select Graphic driver drop-down menu. Now click on the Clean and restart button. DDU will automatically remove all the traces of the old graphic driver from your PC. Your PC might restart a few times. Wait for the process to finish completely. After everything is done, proceed below.
Install NVIDIA drivers via Windows updates
Besides their official website, NVIDIA drivers can also be downloaded from Windows updates. Unlike on the vendor’s website, the drivers present on the Windows update are WHQL certified. Go to the Settings app > Update & security > Windows update and click on Check for updates. Let Windows 10 check if any NVIDIA drivers are available to download. An update most probably will be available to install. Let that update install along with the others. Hey, this is Windows 10 and you can’t manually set which updates you want to download.
If everything goes right, the graphics driver will be successfully installed on your PC. Now, in the case when there is no update available in the Updates section, you will need to manually install the drivers.
Disable driver signature check using advanced reboot menu
The problem is that you can’t really install non-WHQL certified drivers in Windows 10. So, the normally installable drivers are now useless. To fix this, you can head temporarily disable the driver signature check in Windows 10.
- Go to Settings app > Update & security > Recovery. Click on Restart now below the Advanced startup headline.
- Once your PC has booted to the Advanced start menu, click on Troubleshoot and then go to the Advanced settings.
- Click on Startup settings. You will be presented with a list of options which you can select with the help of function keys on your keyboard. The one which you need to select is the one with Disable driver signature enforcement. This will be the F7 key, most probably.
After your PC has booted up, go to NVIDIA’s website and download the latest drivers for your graphics card. The driver installer will not show any compatibility errors this time. After the installation, restart your PC for the last time. Your new drivers are now installed.
