Question: Driver Rollback vs Last Known Good

BryanM67

OK..just wondering..

I understand the purpose of driver rollbacks and also the Last Known Good Configuration. If lets say I update the driver of my network interface card (NIC) and then I completely lose network connectivity, leading me to think the new driver is corrupt or buggy.

Does it matter if I select the rollback feature or if I boot to Last Known Good Configuration? Won't that accomplish the same result? Or is it simply better to choose rollback since its simpler? I'm guessing you have to reboot anyways if you rollback a driver.

Any information as to which method is correct and why? Thanks.

keatron

As I understand it, you would use last good known configuration if the corrupt/wrong driver is causing your machine not to load Windows. For example, you install a new device or driver then you're prompted to reboot. Upon reboot, you find that Windows will no longer load, at this point you would initiate last known good configuration (available from safe mode boot menu). In other words, you would use it when you can't get Windows to load normally after installing a device or driver.

On the other hand, you'd use driver rollback in the scenario you used. Think about it; If the only problem arising from the new driver installation is the fact that the NIC doesn't work anymore (but everything else works fine) it would be over kill to use the safe mode boot option of last known good configuration. If you were able to boot into Windows and actually see that the NIC is not working (via Device Manager) then that would mean that as far as Windows is concerned, that IS the last known good configuration. Therefore it would probably do you no good in this case, to boot from safemode with this option. Which is why driver rollback would be your best choice.

Keatron.

emmajoyce

Ditto,
After you have signed back on sucessfully, last know configuration will do no good. It is to be used if you cant sign on. If youve signed on then use rollback, or system restore points depending on whats wrong. If last known config will not work then try recovery console and as a last resort>> reinstall/repair.