When we install the drivers for an NVIDIA graphics card, we normally install, in addition to the drivers themselves, two applications. On the one hand, NVIDIA GeForce Experience, a game tool that allows us to optimize our games and has other types of functions and tools to improve our experience in them and, on the other hand, the NVIDIA Control Panel.
The former is not inherently installation dependent, in fact, it can be downloaded individually apart from the driver from NVIDIA’s own website, as it is increasingly powerful software and an addition that many will like, but that said, we will focus on the second.
What is the NVIDIA Control Panel?
The NVIDIA Control Panel is a tool that shows us information about our screens and allows us to configure all aspects of it, as well as how we want the 3D Accelerationsomething very useful, for example, to adjust the performance or quality of games.
After many years without changes or improvements in this control panel, it seems that Nvidia He has not forgotten this tool, which we can now download from the Windows 10 or Windows 11 Microsoft Store, this is the main change so far, although others will come later as the company is working on a restiling “secret”.
Developer: NVIDIA Corp.
What changes and contributions does it bring?
In fact, this new control panel does not provide anything that the classic version of it does not provide. This is not an application designed from scratch in UWP formatit’s just the Win32 app ported with Project Centennial in this store.
That is, this “new” NVIDIA Control Panel has no additional features for our graphics card as such, it’s still the same, except that now it has the particularity of being able to be installed separately and updated accordingly from the Microsoft store.
This, which may seem somewhat out of place, makes perfect sense when you consider the named restiling we talked about. NVIDIA is going to offer a completely modified Control Panel in terms of aesthetics and which will surely integrate more functionalities in the future for graphics cards. That said, the first thing we need is to download the APP for our NVIDIA GPU.
How to download NVIDIA Control Panel?
To do this we will go to the Microsoft Store, which we can find in the start menu or in the search section of it. After that and after opening it, we will go to the search bar at the top and write NVIDIA Control Panel. The search will give us the exact result and ready to hit on the right side of the screen at install. If we put NVIDIA Control Panel, it will launch a list in which we will have to search for it manually.
Once the application has been downloaded (of course it is completely free), we run it and, as we will see, it is identical to the application installed with the driver.
Aesthetically and functionally it is the same as the one installed by the driver, except that now we can update it individually without having to do the same with the controller, which is an advantage because if something is fine and works, it is better not to touch it unless improvements or mandatory bug fixes.
As we can see, the configuration options, order and aesthetics are identical, so there really are no more advantages than those explained above.
Problems we can find
This control panel is still not perfect, and we have tried it on two different computers and while it worked on one, on the other when we launch it we get a message from Error like “The supported NVIDIA driver is not installed on your system”, although the latest version of the drivers are installed on the computer.
This may be a first step towards future driver package cleanup, a set that increasingly occupies due to the large number of tools and accessories it includes. NVIDIA may be planning to launch a single driver from its website and allow users to download the apps they want, such as GeForce Experience or this control panel, directly from the Microsoft Store, having everything much more organized and, in addition, much easier to stay up to date.
For now, we can only wait to see what NVIDIA continues to do with its drivers and control panel. Maybe even update and modernize it, because this tool hasn’t changed much for many years.
Likewise, the issues could be on the driver’s side, as the error points out. Perhaps we are in a very old version of it and not compatible with this new option of the NVIDIA control panel. In this case, what we should do is uninstall the corresponding driver via DDU
We have a full DDU manual where we explain everything step by step in a way that makes it really simple. And it is that the NVIDIA uninstaller does not eliminate all the remains of files, registers and structure of its drivers, so if we want to do things correctly so as not to have errors like this, it is recommended to use DDU.
How do I uninstall the NVIDIA Control Panel?
When we currently install an application from the Microsoft Store, a very interesting fact happens and that is that Redmond has deliberately removed the option to uninstall any application from the store, something that is not understood and that has not happened before.
Therefore, they complicated for the novice user how to do it with unexplained reasons, but calm down, logically, it can be done in an easy way. For this we will have to go to the settings (cogwheel icon) after which we will go to the applications and in this list we will see all the uninstall options.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen from the traditional Windows Control Panel, as it doesn’t mirror apps, only traditional programs, all in an attempt by Microsoft to end this in favor of the aforementioned list.
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