Question

Difficulty: EasyResolving System File Corruption and Driver Issues

A user's Windows workstation experiences repeated stop errors (blue screens) immediately after updating a network adapter driver. The technician successfully boots the system into Safe Mode. Which of the following is the BEST initial action to restore system stability?

  1. Roll back the network adapter driver to the previously installed version in Device Manager.Answer
  2. B
    Open Event Viewer and clear the System log to reset the network driver settings.
  3. C
    Execute the sfc /scannow command from a standard command prompt to uninstall the driver.
  4. D
    Access Indexing Options in Control Panel to rebuild the device driver search catalog.

Answer

Roll back the network adapter driver to the previously installed version in Device Manager.
When a Windows system experiences instability immediately following a driver update, rolling back the driver via Device Manager restores the working driver version previously stored by Windows. Performing this action in Safe Mode prevents the faulty driver from triggering a crash during diagnosis.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the cause of the system instability.
The issue began immediately after updating the network adapter driver.
Isolating the trigger points directly to driver incompatibility or corruption.
2
Boot into Safe Mode and launch Device Manager.
Device Manager allows access to hardware device properties.
Safe Mode loads minimal startup drivers, preventing the unstable driver from crashing the OS during maintenance.
3
Select Roll Back Driver under the properties for the network adapter.
The OS reinstalls the previous stable driver binary and configuration.
This quickly undoes the recent change without requiring a full system restoration.

Key Concept

Resolving System File Corruption and Driver Issues
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