Faulty driver can't be deleted/ uninstalled

[Andreas_Gate]

I'm experiencing a frequent BSOD lately. I've been trying to fix it by myself using program like whocrashed and bluescreenview, and I've found the culprit. It is a Realtek WLAN Adapter driver, rtwlanu.sys. Weird thing is I never used any of Realtek WLAN Adapter, nor installed their driver. The device itself is hidden in device manager list. So I uninstalled the driver, but the problem is I still get BSOD related to the driver. And when I checked my system32 folder, also bluescreenview, the driver is still there. I'm using this computer as working computer, and frequent BSOD making me lose a fair amount of time (also progress). There's a lot of program I use in drive C, so if possible I don't want to reset or reinstall my Windows. Any help with this problem is appreciated, thank you.

 

[johnbl]

I think here is the updated driver if you still use the usb wireless thumb device:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=55&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

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Windows plug and play will reinstall the device from the hidden driver store on your machine a few seconds after you uninstall the device. You will want to remove the device driver from the driver store (or disable plug and play while you update the driver)
here is how to remove a device from the driver store
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730875(v=ws.11).aspx

often for a device driver like rtwlanu.sys you want to check the date of the file. This is a usb wifi driver so it depends on the USB support in your BIOS and the cpu chipset drivers and the USB 3.0 chip drivers that might be installed. To have it work correctly you want to update these from your motherboard vendors website. (and make sure your rtwlanu.sys is dated after 3/1/2010 if you plug into a usb 2.x port, or after 4/1/2013 if you plug into a usb 3.0 port.) (often it will be too old if you upgraded from windows 7 to windows 10, and the old one will not work correctly with the new windows 10 usb support)

since it is a usb driver, it can be associated to your port, when the device is removed from the system it will become hidden rather than removed.
you can have them displayed in control panel->device manager select view, then click on show hidden devices.

if you remove the driver package from the driver store, you then can uninstall the driver using device manager and it will not automatically get reinstalled.

you could also put up your dump file from c:\windows\mindump
put the file on a server like Microsoft onedrive, share them for public access and post a link.

 

[Andreas_Gate]

I think here is the updated driver if you still use the usb wireless thumb device:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=55&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

-----------
Windows plug and play will reinstall the device from the hidden driver store on your machine a few seconds after you uninstall the device. You will want to remove the device driver from the driver store (or disable plug and play while you update the driver)
here is how to remove a device from the driver store
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730875(v=ws.11).aspx

often for a device driver like rtwlanu.sys you want to check the date of the file. This is a usb wifi driver so it depends on the USB support in your BIOS and the cpu chipset drivers and the USB 3.0 chip drivers that might be installed. To have it work correctly you want to update these from your motherboard vendors website. (and make sure your rtwlanu.sys is dated after 3/1/2010 if you plug into a usb 2.x port, or after 4/1/2013 if you plug into a usb 3.0 port.) (often it will be too old if you upgraded from windows 7 to windows 10, and the old one will not work correctly with the new windows 10 usb support)

since it is a usb driver, it can be associated to your port, when the device is removed from the system it will become hidden rather than removed.
you can have them displayed in control panel->device manager select view, then click on show hidden devices.

if you remove the driver package from the driver store, you then can uninstall the driver using device manager and it will not automatically get reinstalled.

Thank you for the answer. But like I said, I never used any Realtek WLAN adapter. And I can't seem to find any of their new driver for the adapters, I've tried to search for that. The main problem is, I've uninstalled the driver from device manager, and yes, it was hidden, but the driver .sys file still exist, and that file is causing the BSOD (I think, because I've checked the dumps in 2 programs and both pointed at the driver for fault). Also I checked in the pnputil, but can't seem to find the driver package either. Maybe the file is corrupted? Thank you again!

 

[johnbl]

have you used any usb wireless network adapter. realtek makes the chip and driver and it gets sold to various vendors who just package it and sell it under their name. could be tp-link, or buffalo or any number of vendors.

you might go to control panel, and uninstall the USB ports, windows will just reinstall the ports but the driver for the wireless could be dropped.

also, a version of this driver does come with windows. if you are searching you might just find it even if it is not the one installed. I have never installed it and I find 4 copies on my machine. 2 in the current windows 10 install and 2 in windows.old install.


in any case you might install the update driver just so it will not bugcheck. Maybe the uninstall might even work.

I think here is the updated driver if you still use the usb wireless thumb device:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=55&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

-----------
Windows plug and play will reinstall the device from the hidden driver store on your machine a few seconds after you uninstall the device. You will want to remove the device driver from the driver store (or disable plug and play while you update the driver)
here is how to remove a device from the driver store
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730875(v=ws.11).aspx

often for a device driver like rtwlanu.sys you want to check the date of the file. This is a usb wifi driver so it depends on the USB support in your BIOS and the cpu chipset drivers and the USB 3.0 chip drivers that might be installed. To have it work correctly you want to update these from your motherboard vendors website. (and make sure your rtwlanu.sys is dated after 3/1/2010 if you plug into a usb 2.x port, or after 4/1/2013 if you plug into a usb 3.0 port.) (often it will be too old if you upgraded from windows 7 to windows 10, and the old one will not work correctly with the new windows 10 usb support)

since it is a usb driver, it can be associated to your port, when the device is removed from the system it will become hidden rather than removed.
you can have them displayed in control panel->device manager select view, then click on show hidden devices.

if you remove the driver package from the driver store, you then can uninstall the driver using device manager and it will not automatically get reinstalled.

Thank you for the answer. But like I said, I never used any Realtek WLAN adapter. And I can't seem to find any of their new driver for the adapters, I've tried to search for that. The main problem is, I've uninstalled the driver from device manager, and yes, it was hidden, but the driver .sys file still exist, and that file is causing the BSOD (I think, because I've checked the dumps in 2 programs and both pointed at the driver for fault). Also I checked in the pnputil, but can't seem to find the driver package either. Maybe the file is corrupted? Thank you again!

 

[Andreas_Gate]

have you used any usb wireless network adapter. realtek makes the chip and driver and it gets sold to various vendors who just package it and sell it under their name. could be tp-link, or buffalo or any number of vendors.

you might go to control panel, and uninstall the USB ports, windows will just reinstall the ports but the driver for the wireless could be dropped.

also, a version of this driver does come with windows. if you are searching you might just find it even if it is not the one installed. I have never installed it and I find 4 copies on my machine. 2 in the current windows 10 install and 2 in windows.old install.


in any case you might install the update driver just so it will not bugcheck. Maybe the uninstall might even work.

Sorry for the late reply, but yeah, I've reset the windows and found out that the TP-LINK adapter I'm using is using the rtwlanu.sys. That's why even after I uninstalled the Realtek adapter driver, the file still remains. Thank you for the answer! That does clear things up, too bad the notification didn't really show up at time...