DiUninstallDriverA function (newdev.h)

Article
07/27/2022

The DiUninstallDriver function removes a driver package from any devices it is installed on by installing those devices with another matching driver package, if available, or the null driver if no other matching driver package is available. Then the specified driver package is removed from the driver store.

Syntax

BOOL DiUninstallDriverA(
  [in, optional]  HWND   hwndParent,
  [in]            LPCSTR InfPath,
  [in]            DWORD  Flags,
  [out, optional] PBOOL  NeedReboot
);

Parameters

[in, optional] hwndParent

A handle to the top-level window that DiUninstallDriver should use to display any user interface component that is associated with uninstalling the driver. This parameter is optional and can be set to NULL.

[in] InfPath

A pointer to a NULL-terminated string that supplies the fully qualified path of the INF file for the driver package.

[in] Flags

A value of type DWORD that specifies zero or one or more of the following flags: DIURFLAG_NO_REMOVE_INF. Typically, this flag should be set to zero.

If this flag is zero, DiUninstallDriver removes the driver package from any devices it is installed on by installing those devices with another matching driver package, if available, or the null driver if no other matching driver package is available. However, if this flag is set to DIURFLAG_NO_REMOVE_INF, DiUninstallDriver removes the driver package from any devices it is installed on, but does not remove the driver package from the Driver Store.

Caution: Forcing the uninstallation of the driver package can result in replacing a more compatible or newer driver package with a less compatible or older driver.

For information about how Windows selects a driver package for a device, see How Windows Selects Drivers.

[out, optional] NeedReboot

A pointer to a value of type BOOL that DiUninstallDriver sets to indicate whether a system restart is required to complete the uninstallation. This parameter is optional and can be NULL. If the parameter is supplied and a system restart is required to complete the uninstallation, DiUninstallDriver sets the value to TRUE. In this case, the caller must prompt the user to restart the system. If this parameter is supplied and a system restart is not required to complete the uninstallation, DiUninstallDriver sets the value to FALSE. If the parameter is NULL and a system restart is required to complete the uninstallation, DiUninstallDriver displays a system restart dialog box. For more information about this parameter, see the following Remarks section.

Return value

DiUninstallDriver returns TRUE if the function successfully removes the driver package from any devices it is installed on and is successfully removed from the driver store of the system. If the driver package is not successfully uninstalled from the driver store, DiUninstallDriver returns FALSE and the logged error can be retrieved by making a call to GetLastError. Some of the more common error values that GetLastError might return are as follows:

Return code	Description
ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED	The caller does not have Administrator privileges. By default, Windows requires that the caller have Administrator privileges to uninstall a driver package from the driver store.
ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND	The path of the specified INF file does not exist.
ERROR_INVALID_FLAGS	The value specified for Flags is not equal to zero or DIURFLAG_NO_REMOVE_INF.
ERROR_IN_WOW64	The calling application is a 32-bit application that is attempting to execute in a 64-bit environment, which is not allowed. For more information, see Installing Devices on 64-Bit Systems.

Remarks

In general, an uninstallation application should set NeedReboot to NULL to direct DiUninstallDriver to prompt the user to restart the system if a restart is required to complete the removal. An application should supply a NeedReboot pointer only in the following cases:

The application must call DiUninstallDriver several times to complete an uninstallation. In this case, the application should record whether a TRUE NeedReboot value is returned by any of the calls to DiUninstallDriver and, if so, prompt the user to restart the system after the final call to DiUninstallDriver returns.
The application must perform required operations, other than calling DiUninstallDriver, before a system restart should occur. If a system restart is required, the application should finish the required operations and then prompt the user to restart the system.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Available in Windows 10 Version 1703 and later versions of Windows.
Target Platform	Desktop
Header	newdev.h (include Newdev.h)
Library	Newdev.lib