GeForce is one of the most popular graphics card brands designed by NVIDIA that is preferred by a lot of gamer. When you have an NVIDIA graphics card in your computer then chances are you will also have the NVIDIA Experience software installed. This comes with several tools which allows you to optimize your game play experience. Although this is a stable software there are instances when certain issues can occur. In this latest installment of our troubleshooting series we will tackle the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue.
How To Fix GeForce Experience Stuck At Preparing to Install Screen Issue
Before performing any of the recommended troubleshooting steps listed below its best to restart your computer first. This will refresh the operating system and remove any corrupted temporary data that could be causing the problem.
One of the main reasons why you will experience this problem is because of a software glitch. Listed below are the recommended troubleshooting steps that you need to do to fix the problem.
Run GeForce Experience as an administrator
There are instances when making certain changes to the GeForce Experience software needs an elevated permission. If you are running this without administrative privileges then this problem can occur. To fix this just right click on the GeForce Experience desktop icon then click on run as an administrator.
Try installing the updated graphics driver again. Check if the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue still occurs.
Disable your antivirus real-time scanning
There are instances when the antivirus software installed in your computer is so strict that it prevents any registry changes to be done on your computer. This usually causes this particular problem as the GeForce Experience software usually needs to write data to the computer registry to install the updates. To fix this problem you should try to disable the real time scanning of the antivirus software.
Windows Security
- Select Start then go to Settings.
- Go to Update & Security then go to Windows Security – Virus & threat protection – Manage settings.
- Switch real-time protection off
If you are using a third party antivirus software then check its documentation on how to turn off its real time protection.
Check if the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue still occurs.
Manually download the drivers
There’s a chance that the driver that has been downloaded is faulty which is why you will need to manually download it.
- Close all processes of the GeForce Experience from the Task Manager.
- Go to the NVIDIA driver download page then download the appropriate driver for your computer system.
- Once the file has been downloaded open and install it.
Check if the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue still occurs
Force Windows to install the driver
One way to fix this problem is to uninstall the GeForce drivers from your computer then let Windows search for and install the drivers.
- Press the Windows+R key to open the Run command.
- Type “appwiz.cpl” then hit Enter.
- Right click on the NVIDIA graphics driver then select Uninstall.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall the driver.
- You should also uninstall GeForce Experience, Audio Driver, and PhysX system.
- Restart your computer.
- Use the search bar to go to Check for Updates
- Click on Check for Updates. If there are any pending updates available then download and install these first before getting the NVIDIA drivers.
Check if the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue still occurs.
Perform a clean reinstall of the NVIDIA driver
In case the above steps fails to fix the problem then you should remove all traces of the NVIDIA driver from your computer then reinstall it.
- Press the Windows+R key to open the Run command.
- Type “appwiz.cpl” then hit enter.
- Right click on the NVIDIA graphics driver then select Uninstall.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall the driver.
- You should also uninstall GeForce Experience, Audio Driver, and PhysX system.
- Restart your computer.
- Use CCleaner to remove any traces of NVIDIA files from your computer.
- Manually install the NVIDIA drivers again.
Check if the GeForce Experience stuck at preparing to install screen issue still occurs.