Nvidia driver will not install

I was attempting to update my Nvidia driver and ran into trouble. I have downloaded the latest driver from the Nvidia site and uninstalled the old driver. When attempting to install the new driver the installer will not launch. Clicking on the downloaded file will get the Run/Cancel box. Clicking run closes the box, but nothing happens. I attempted to "Run As" and after clicking through the Run/Cancel box I get a error dialog box saying "access denied" and "Unable to open the self-extracting executable file. The file is locked or in use by another process." I have installed drivers many times before and never run into this issue.

I originally thought I may have a virus or malware onboard causing this. I started next door at the hijack this forum. They have given me a clean bill of health and suggested I ask for help here.

The thread is here: My Thread
I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions anyone could offer.

Tony

Hi Tony.

Give Dial-A-Fix a try. No installation needed, just run the Dial-a-fix.exe.
Click on the double green check marks, then click on GO.

When it completes, reboot and try the install again.

From their web site: DAF's primary philosophy is to fix problems by setting various things back to their original Microsoft defaults.

Thanks for the suggestion. I dowloaded Dial-A-Fix and ran it. I tried to install the driver after reboot, but no luck. I get the same message as before. Tony

What message? You said you don't get any message when you run the software? Except for when you try to runas…Who are you trying to run it as?

Download the file again, to your desktop.

Open My Computer, navigate to C:\Documents and settings\\local settings\temp.
Select everything in that folder and press SHIFT-DEL to delete it permanently. If you receive an error about a file in use, unselect that file, and delete the rest of them until they are all gone.

Now, navigate to C:\Windows\Temp and delete all those files too. Do the same thing if you get a file in use error.

Now, navigate to C:\ and delete the NVIDIA folder.

Now, run the executable file you downloaded on your desktop as your normal user account, as long as you are an administrator.

If you can't see the …\local settings\temp folder as mentioned above, you may need to turn on hidden and system folders view. Here's how:

How to show hidden and system files in Windows XP:

• Open My Computer, then click the Tools menu, then click Folder Options.
• In the Folder Options window, click the View tab.
• In the Advanced Settings window:
  
  • Select Show Hidden Files and Folders.
  • Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
  • Uncheck Hide protected operating system files.
• Click OK, and close the My Computer window.

I've deleted the items mentioned in the previous post and attempted to run the installer from the desktop. The only file I could not delete was in the Windows/Temp folder. It is "Perflib_Perfdata_bc.dat". I am still unable to install the driver however. I may not be doing a great job properly describing what is happening. When I try to run the installer normally (double click on icon or from the Run… command under Start I get the Open File dialog box with Run / Cancel buttons. Clicking run closes the box, but then nothing happens. The program does not seem to freeze and I am able to use the computer as normal. It gives the appearance that the program just ended without any further output. Right clicking on the installer icon will open a command box that has a "Run as… " option. Using that, a dialog box opens to run as current user or other user. At present there is only one user account set up on this machine and it is set as administrator. Previously I had additional accounts configured, but I removed them prior to this as they really were not useful for what we were using this computer for. When attempting to run the Nvidia installer using Run as… current user I get the "file locked or in use" error message. I'm hoping this has enough detail to help. Any other ideas would be very much appreciated. Thanks again Tony

Can you tell me what video card you have? And, if you right-click the file that you have, and select properties, what is the file's name and size on disk? Please be specific, and tell me the exact number of bytes.

I have an Nvidia GeForce FX5200 The file name is "175.19_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe" file size is 38,674,984 bytes size on disk is 38,678,528 bytes I downloaded direct from the Nvidia web site Tony

MrTony, this all looks like you have the correct file and in its entirety. I noticed something, when I downloaded and ran it that made me wonder about your computer. When I run it, windows warns me about the file and confirms I want to run it. It also states, in its properties, that the file came from another computer and tells me it might be blocked. It then has a button to click to "Unblock." the file. I started wondering, if your internet options settings (I think this is where the settings for that are) are incorrect, or you have security software on your computer set wrong, it may block this file all together. First, try right-clicking the file and clicking properties again. Look for the "Unblock" button near the bottom of the window. Click it, and apply. See if the file will open now.

I Unblocked the file in Properties, but the installer will not run. The only noticable difference I saw after unblocking was that the Run / Cancel dialog box did not come up. It appeared to execute (my assumption) after double clicking, but no output from the program. Tony

This is probably a silly question, but I've seen worse… Have you rebooted your computer and tried installing this file again?

Yes, unfortunately no luck with that. I've never seen anything quite like this before. I'm not sure what else I can pass on that may help get to the bottom of it. I do appreciate your time helping me work through this. Thanks again. Tony

Yes, quite weird.

I honestly don't know where to go from here.

You can try creating a new user account, and installing the driver from that account.

Or, you can try eliminating all your startup and services temporarily with msconfig:

Click start -> run -> type msconfig and press ENTER.
Click the "services" tab, check "Hide all Microsoft services." click Disable All.
Click the "Startup" tab, click Disable All.
Click OK, and reboot.

Try installing now.

Note: The above procedure could temporarily disable anti-virus and other security software. It is used only for diagnostic purposes, and internet usage should be limited to testing only in this state. Please return your computer to a normal startup, when finished, by opening msconfig again, clicking the "general" tab, and selecting "Normal" startup.

If a new account doesn't work, or disabling everything, try opening a Command Prompt, then using the CD (Change Directory) command to navigate to where ever you downloaded the nVidia driver, then enter:

175.19_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe

I curious to see if you get some kind of error message when you do that.

You could make it easier by copying 175.19_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe to your C:\Documents and Settings\youruserid directory before opening the Command Prompt window as that is the default directory.

Hi

Just leaving 2 cents of notice

One of these may be helpful:

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

and / or

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Do take the time to read the usage description before using any of these.


Cheers

I attempted to install with a new user account and also with startup & services disabled. In both cases I was unable to install and the computer behaved as before. I then tried to run in a DOS box as suggested by ZTruker. The installer did not run, but I did get a very interesting error message. It shows "175.19_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file". It's acting like the install file is not executable. Any ideas on what that may mean? Tony