Graphics cards are the most dynamic hardware components of the modern PC, in need of constant driver updates to keep them optimized for the latest games. Intel may be the newest on the block with discrete gaming GPUs, with its Arc A-series competing in the mid-range, but the company has a vast software engineering muscle that ensures a constant stream of driver updates for these GPUs regardless of their smaller market share compared to entrenched players NVIDIA and AMD. A part of keeping the drivers up-to-date and understanding the user-base to improve future generations of GPUs, involves data-collection from the existing users.

The updated installer of Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers lets users decide if they want the company to collect anonymous usage data from them. For those with the data-collection already opted in, the installer leaves the data-collection component untouched in the "typical" installation option, and presents it as an optional action item in the "Customize" installation option. For those that did not opt for data-collection, the "typical" installation option doesn't sneak the component in, but presents it as an unchecked optional item in the "Customize" screen. An older version of this article stated that the data-collection component, dubbed Computing Improvement Program (CIP), would install onto unsuspecting users' machines in the "typical" installation, disregarding their prior choices with the component. We have since significantly changed our article as Intel clarified many of our questions and demystified CIF, what its scope of data-collection is, and how it makes its way to your machine with Intel's driver software.

We have updated our popular NVCleanstall software that lets you customize the NVIDIA GeForce Driver package by removing components you don't need or want. Unlike the NVIDIA custom installation, you can unselect packages like Stereo 3D Glasses, USB-C, Notebook Optimizations, or Telemetry from the NVIDIA drivers, allowing for a truly custom installation. In the latest release of NVCleanstall 1.16.0, the software has been patched with a few interesting additions. Firstly, the software can now disable NVIDIA's Ansel in-game screen capture from the driver package. Next, the software also added a new install action, "Copy Folder," which copies the NVCleanstall output directory to a folder of your choice.

Besides new features, some fixes have been implemented as well. The "auto-accept unsigned driver warning" only worked on Windows 11 and has been fixed now to work on Windows 10, too. A rare crash has been fixed on systems with English (United States) culture settings, but with the decimal separator switched to a value other than "."—"," for example. Due to a change in NVIDIA's drivers the NVENC patch integration stopped working recently, which is fixed with this release as well. The upgrade is recommended for all users.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.16.0

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp NVCleanstall, a handy utility that lets you take greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation. NVCleanstall lets you disable stuff you probably don't need, such as Telemetry, or legacy components, giving your PC a leaner set of system software from NVIDIA. Version 1.15.0 introduces several handy changes. To begin with, the title screen shows whether the currently installed driver is a Studio driver (optimized for creators). A crash during the background update check for new NVIDIA drivers has been fixed.

We've added two more installer tweaks with this release. The first one lets you disable Multiplane Overlay (MPO)—doing so is known to fix certain rare system stuttering issues. Another tweak lets you disable the NVENC concurrent session encoding limits, so you can encode more than two streams in parallel. This tweak uses keylase's patch scripts from GitHub. The "build package" option has been improved to ensure it runs well on systems with more than 20 CPU cores, and better error reporting has been added. Grab TechPowerUp NVCleanstall v1.15.0 from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.15.0

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of the TechPowerUp NVCleanstall, the definitive utility for taking greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation and update processes. NVCleanstall gives you a far greater degree of control over the various low-level driver components you want to install or skip, letting you disable things you don't need, such as Telemetry. These options aren't available in the "Custom install" page of the NVIDIA installer. Our latest version 1.14.0 comes with a few handy changes.

We've fixed an issue that caused driver update check to not work. We added the ability to not disturb an active gaming session when a new version of GeForce drivers is detected, and wait for the game session to end before prompting you to update. NVCleanstall deconstructs and reconstructs the GeForce software package to your exact specifications, if rebuilding the digital signature of this this fails due to the KeyISO service being disabled, a proper error message will be shown now. The "unsigned driver" error message by Windows can now be skipped when an EAC-compatible signature mode is selected. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall v1.14.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest update to NVCleanstall, a lightweight utility that lets you take far greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce graphics driver installation than what NVIDIA's installer allows; letting you toggle several under-the-hood features that you potentially might not need. The latest version 1.13.0 adds several new features and improves the interface. For starters, we've now added the ability to fetch and install NVIDIA GeForce Studio drivers, should you choose those over the regular Game-Ready drivers. The interface now fetches driver versions to the opening page much quicker, and uses less bandwidth to do so. Download performance is improved by splitting them into smaller chunks that can be cached and downloaded at higher speeds.

With this release, NVCleanstall also remembers your choices in the Tweaks page from your previous use. More recent versions of NVIDIA GeForce drivers, including DCH, packs the NVIDIA Control Panel, and so the "Install DCH Control Panel" option doesn't show for these newer versions. We've also touched up the driver package descriptions to be more informative. If you already have DLSS Indicator enabled on your machine, NVCleanstall leaves it enabled in the Tweaks page, and can be unchecked from there. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.13.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our popular utility that gives you much greater control over the installation of your GeForce software installation, letting you filter out several components you probably don't need, such as Telemetry. Version 1.11.0 introduces support for Windows 11. The utility will now recommend an upgrade from non-DCH to DCH drivers, because NVIDIA stopped releasing non-DCH drivers recently. A new tweak has been added, which when enabled, shows DLSS status and library version through an in-game overlay. Fixes and improvements include a notice when selecting the "Disable NVIDIA Container" option (that it will break NVIDIA Control Panel); bugs related to several third-party driver packages due to a case-sensitivity issue, etc.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.12.0Update Nov 11th: We just released NVCleanstall v1.12.0 to fix a bug that got introduced in v1.11.0: On systems with a language that doesn't use "." as decimal separator, an error "Input string is not in a correct format" would pop up.

The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our handy, lightweight utility that lets you customize your NVIDIA drivers installation to a much greater degree than the "Custom" install option in the NVIDIA Installer, letting you toggle components and features you didn't even know exist. The latest version 1.10.0 introduces several updates. For starters, it fixes ShadowPlay not working (even though selected), due to a missing reference to NvModuleTracker. We've introduced an additional driver signing mode that's compatible with EasyAntiCheat. NVCleanstall now discards the generated private key once the signature rebuild is complete, for additional security.

We've introduced a feature that lets you create a self-contained EXE installer with the installation options you've selected. The option to disable NVContainer has been introduced, however, this may break GeForce Experience, and removes NVIDIA's Desktop context menu. You can configure MSI (message-signaled-interrupt) CPU selection and priority. NVCleanstall also makes sure MSI only gets activated on NVIDIA GPU devices. An option has been added letting you disable HDCP. The app now warns you that UWP apps can't be installed in Safe Mode, if you request the Control Panel app while running in Safe Mode. The app also warns about installation of GeForce Experience in Safe Mode. Both these limitations are due to Safe Mode, not NVCleanstall. When customizing your install, you can now also provide hooks to run programs before and after installation. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.10.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that lets you take greater control of your NVIDIA driver software installation, letting you toggle the installation of a lot more features than what the "Custom" option in the NVIDIA installer allows. These could be important features such as Telemetry. Version 1.9.0 introduces a handful major feature updates. We've improved the driver signature rebuilding so you no longer see the "do you want to trust this publisher" warning. The "Add Hardware Support" setting has been fixed for Quadro drivers. We've also greatly reduced the app's memory footprint, with help from jgottula.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.9.0

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that lets you heavily customize your NVIDIA GeForce software installation, letting you skip many more components that NVIDIA's installer brings. Version 1.7.0 introduces the ability to mod the drivers to add support for additional graphics devices. This should come particularly handy when trying to install the latest drivers on notebooks without official support. NVCleanstall can now tell if its being run on a notebook (instead of a desktop), and suggest the most appropriate driver. You may choose to display all available driver versions, overriding your hardware, for example to create deployment packages for other machines. An experimental option to disable driver telemetry was also added. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.7.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today announced the latest update to NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that gives you a high degree of control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation. The app lets you disable a lot more components you don't need than NVIDIA's own "custom install" option, giving you control over things such as telemetry. With the latest version 1.6.0, we have massively improved download speeds during the first 30% of the driver download. An application crash at startup with the Task Scheduler service not working, has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.6.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our handy utility that lets you have far greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation. Today's release of version 1.4.0 is hot on the heels of Monday's 1.3.0 release, because we discovered a handful additional things that needed fixing or polish. To begin with, we improved the MSI (enable message signaled interrupts) toggle to work correctly in all cases. We also fixed a bug that caused the "New Version" popup to always show v1.1.0 as the latest available. We also polished the advanced tweaks panel, removing empty spaces when a non-DCH driver is used. Grab NVCleanstall 1.4.0 from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.4.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest update to NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that lets you heavily customize your NVIDIA GeForce software installation, letting you choose not to install a lot more components than what NVIDIA's installer allows. You can disable installation of components you probably don't need, such as telemetry. Version 1.3.0 introduces the ability to install the NVIDIA Control Panel app from Microsoft Store without needing to log-in with a Microsoft account, for the DCH version of GeForce Software. This is particularly useful for those using the DCH version of GeForce software without wanting to log into Microsoft Store.

TechPowerUp NVCleanstall Version 1.3.0 also introduces a tweak that makes the driver use message-signaled interrupts (MSI). We have reorganized the user interface to move a large selection of advanced tweaks to their own page. As part of the driver customization process, you can make advanced tweaks in this page, or move on to building your custom driver package. We've also added the ability for you to drag-and-drop downloaded driver files onto NVCleanstall for them to be used as installer source. Lastly, we fixed background driver update check not getting disabled when its checkbox is unchecked. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.3.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our free lightweight utility that gives you greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce driver installation, by letting you select from a more detailed list of components to install than the NVIDIA installer. You can prevent installation of components you don't need, such as telemetry. With version 1.2.0, we've improved in three key areas. To begin with, the driver version selection page loads faster, and consumes 95 percent less bandwidth.

NVCleanstall v1.2.0 also introduces two new features. The first one is the ability to periodically check for driver updates. By default, this feature is turned off — you opt to enable it. When enabled, you can tell the app just how frequently you want it to check for updates. It's optimized to generate as little Internet traffic as possible (800 bytes per check), it does not permanently run in the background, and thus has no additional CPU or memory footprint. No information is transmitted when checking for driver updates. The app merely looks up what's the latest driver version on our server, and if it's newer than what you have, a notification pops up. This notification gives you the option to download and install it, seek more details (change-log), or choose to skip the version altogether. Lastly, we've added a feature that looks for updates to NVCleanstall itself, to ensure you're always up-to-date. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.2.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our free and handy utility that lets you take greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation by customizing it to a far greater degree than the NVIDIA installer, and disabling features such as Telemetry. Version 1.1.0 introduces a few handy changes, beginning with a now working dependency resolution algorithm, improved error-handling when no Internet connectivity is found, and improvements to the user-interface. Crashes have been fixed when certain very old drivers or incompatible hardware is used. A toggle lets you optionally disable automatic reboot, if needed by the installer. We've added an advanced tweak that lets you disable the sleep timer of the GPU-integrated HD audio device, fixing broken audio on VR headsets.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.1.0

The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today announced NVCleanstall, its latest original software designed to give PC enthusiasts and gamers unparalleled control over the installation of NVIDIA GeForce software. Besides the actual driver for your GeForce graphics processor, NVIDIA GeForce software includes close to a dozen optional components, not all of which can be opted out of in the "Custom" installation screen of NVIDIA's installer. Among these are Telemetry, which regularly sends your usage data to NVIDIA, and drivers for stereoscopic 3D, Shield, etc. These components may not all be useless or harmful, but aren't strictly required for your GPU to work and render graphics like it should. NVIDIA treats many of these software components as an extension of the product itself.

NVCleanstall has a clean user interface that begins with a screen that lets you choose the software version you want. It can either fetch the latest software from the Internet for you, or lets you select a downloaded NVIDIA GeForce software package (installer binary) from your PC, or lets you fetch a specific driver version you want from the Internet. You are then presented with an exhaustive list of components to install, categorized under the main components, and GeForce Experience. You can also select from our curated presets if you're not sure. In the following page, the app prepares your installation. In this screen, you can select from useful additional tweaks, including disabling the installer's own telemetry, scripting an unattended install, and pre-checking the "clean install" option in the NVIDIA driver installer. After that, NVCleanstall spawns the NVIDIA installer to install what you selected in NVCleanstall, or take you to the customized driver files. NVCleanstall has been put through months of rigorous testing from our community of PC enthusiasts. The app gives you not just greater control over your NVIDIA software, but also reduces the disk usage and memory footprint of your NVIDIA software.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.0.0

NVIDIA today released its GeForce 436.02 WHQL Gamescom Special graphics drivers. You can read all about them here. The installer of these drivers appears to have a major bug that forces the installation of GeForce Experience without obtaining GDPR-compliant consent from the user. With the ratification of GDPR, NVIDIA driver installers present a selection screen right at the start of the installation, which lets users opt to install GeForce Experience (and give their GDPR consent in doing so), but a second option lets users decline GDPR consent, forcing the installer to install GeForce drivers without GeForce Experience. A bug with the installer of GeForce 436.02 WHQL disregards the user's choice at this screen, and installs GeForce Experience without the GDPR-mandated user-consent.

Making matters far worse is the fact that you cannot deselect GeForce Experience from the list of components in the Custom Install screen. The Custom Install list lets you make the installer skip installation of optional components that are otherwise installed by default in Express Install (GeForce Experience features in this list only if a user gives GDPR consent in the previous screen). We're hoping that this is a simple installer bug by NVIDIA, because anything worse would put the company in violation of EU privacy laws. We at TechPowerUp are in the final stages of developing a free utility that lets users take complete control over their NVIDIA graphics driver installation, called NVCleanstall. Using this software you may skip lot more optional components than what the NVIDIA Installer allows, such as Telemetry. Grab a beta version of NVCleanstall from here.Update 16:27 UTC: NVIDIA has removed the 436.02 drivers from their website, and confirmed that this is a bug.

Update Aug 21st: The 436.02 drivers are available again, and the GeForce Experience install problem is fixed. Look for the suffix "-rp" in the file name to identify the fixed version.