GeForce Experience is an important tool for gamers that have an NVIDIA graphics card. It lets you optimize different video games and update NVIDIA graphics card drivers. GeForce Experience has always performed those functions quite reliably, but it doesn’t always run perfectly. Many gamers have complained that the software gets stuck when updating their graphics card drivers.
This can be pretty frustrating since you need an updated graphics driver to run your favorite games properly. Fortunately, you can easily resolve this issue with a few proven methods. In today’s post, we will show you how to fix the GeForce Experience problem where you’re stuck on the “preparing to install” screen.
Why Does the GeForce Experience Stuck on “Preparing to Install” Screen Issue Occur?
This issue can be caused by different factors, but the most common are software glitches and bugs. The error mostly occurs on non-gaming PCs and M-series NVIDIA GPUs, but other users have experience it on other NVIDIA graphics cards, as well.
How to Fix the GeForce Experience Stuck on Drivers Problem
This error might seem complicated, but it’s pretty fixable with a few effective tactics. However, we recommend that you first restart your computer before doing anything else. This allows your PC and GeForce Experience to start afresh, and could fix the problem on its own.
If the error still persists after the restart, you need to try one of the solutions below.
Method 1: Run GeForce Experience as An Administrator
GeForce Experience requires administrative privileges to update drivers on your computer. Without these permissions, the app is likely to freeze during the update process.
To prevent that, follow these steps to run GeForce Experience as an admin:
1. Right-click on the app’s desktop shortcut. If you don’t have the desktop shortcut, navigate to the software’s installation folder and right-click on its EXE file. Here, select “Run as administrator”.
2. Choose Yes when the User Account Control prompt appears.
3. Try updating your graphics card when GeForce Experience launches.
Method 2: Temporarily Disable Your Antivirus
Your antivirus software might sometimes treat GeForce Experience as a threat, thus blocking it when trying to update the graphics driver. Temporarily disabling it could allow you to update your driver and then turn it back on later.
Use this guide to disable Windows security:
1. Press Win + I keys simultaneously to launch the Settings application.
2. Click “Update & Security”
3. Select “Windows Security” on the next window.
4. Then click on “Virus & threat protection” on the right pane.
5. Go to the Real-time protection option and disable it.
6. Now try updating your graphics card using GeForce Experience.
If you have a third-party antivirus, disable it to reduce any chances of interference. To do so, browse through the software’s settings and find the disable protection setting (or something similar).
Still, getting the error? Don’t worry. The following method can also solve the problem…
Method 3: Update Windows
Updating Windows is another quick way to solve GeForce Experience getting stuck on the “preparing to install” screen. Installing new Windows updates can often fix software problems on your PC.
These instructions will guide you through checking for and installing any updates available for Windows:
1. Press the Windows logo + I keyboard combo to open the Settings app.
2. Go to “Update & Security”.
3. Click “Check for updates”.
4. Wait for Windows to automatically download the available updates.
5. Restart the machine to complete the installation process.
Windows may sometimes fail to install the updated driver, but you can force it to do so by following these steps:
1. Click on the search box on the left-side corner of your screen.
2. Type in “device manager” (without quotes) and select “Open” on the right pane.
3. On the new window, double-click on “Display adapters” to expand it.
4. Right-click on your GPU driver and choose “Update driver”.
5. Click “Search automatically for drivers” and let Windows update the driver.
6. Then restart your device to apply the changes.
The freezing issue should be gone by now.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above solutions have helped you eliminate the “GeForce Experience stuck on preparing to install” error. If you used another method to successfully eliminate this problem, please share them with us in the comment section below.
