Using netcfg to remove an ndis LWF doesn't remove it from the driver store?

NTDEV
1

Hi,

When we try to remove our NDIS LWF using netcfg -u, i notice that it doesn’t remove it from the driver store (can be seen with pnputil /enum-drivers).

This is causing problem because on some Windows 10 machines, if we uninstall the previous version of our NDIS LWF and install the new one, for some unknown reason the old inf is still used to install it! And i assume its because the inf still has the same componentID? We are updating the INF file in order to attach to some virtual adapters that we previously couldn’t attach.

So my questions are:

  1. Why is Windows still using the previous INF from driver store when we try to install the new updated driver that has a different INF?

  2. What is the proper way to fully remove the previous NDIS LWF, including from driver store? If we need to use pnputil to fully remove it from driver store, then what is the proper way of finding the OEM number, considering that pnputil -d requires an OEM number?

2

Why is Windows still using the previous INF from driver store when we try to install the new updated driver

The most common reason for this is that you haven’t (correctly) changed the DriverVer directive in the INF. If the DriverVer isn’t updated to indicate that the new INF is “newer” then Windows uses the old INF.

Peter

3

@“Peter_Viscarola_(OSR)” said:

Why is Windows still using the previous INF from driver store when we try to install the new updated driver

The most common reason for this is that you haven’t (correctly) changed the DriverVer directive in the INF. If the DriverVer isn’t updated to indicate that the new INF is “newer” then Windows uses the old INF.

Peter

Thank you, indeed the problem was that we used the same driver version and forgot to update it.

4

Glad to help.

I’ve seen that error no less than sixty two zillion times in our driver seminars over the years. So, you’re not the only one to miss this.

Peter