Windows can remove drivers from a GPU if it remains disabled for several days

Windows can perform maintenance tasks to help us keep equipment clean, including the driver software for devices we no longer use. But a particular case that we can see on Reddit has left a user without the drivers for your NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti which I had temporarily disabled. Windows had removed these drivers after 15 dayssince the user had put his laptop in ECO mode, which caused the dedicated GPU to be completely disabled.

Windows removed the drivers of an RTX 5070 Ti after 15 days

This user, with a ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 laptophad activated the ECO mode from Armory Crate which completely disables the dedicated GPU to reduce power consumption. Even the GPU disappears from device manager while powered off with this mode enabled. The surprise was, that after 15 days, Windows had removed this device from the system The NVIDIA driver package had even subsequently been removed as a Windows cleanup process.

Windows usually waits a predetermined amount of time for 30 days to carry out this type of cleaning, but on this occasion it seems that he decided to reduce it by half. This is not something “surprising” since the Microsoft documentation indicates that you can remove a device’s software, including drivers, if no device depends on them.

What to do if Windows removes the drivers for a disabled GPU?

The solution goes through install the NVIDIA package again or any other software that Windows has decided to delete if we don’t use it. A measure that seems good, but perhaps these types of situations should be controlled more by the operating systemso that your GPU can remain inactive for a long period if you are not going to use them, since it is a very effective way of gain extra battery time when you are not going to use it.