At times, you might see “Display driver failed to start. Display driver failed to start; using Microsoft Basic Display Driver instead. Check Windows Update for a newer display driver” notification on Windows 10.
The “Display driver failed to start” error message appears when your graphics driver installed for your onboard or dedicated graphics card failed to start normally.
If the error appeared for the first time, you can simply ignore the error and continue using Windows 10. But if the error message is often appearing, you need to follow the given below directions to update your graphics driver in Windows 10.
Method 1 of 4
Update the display driver in Windows 10
Step 1: Open Device Manager by right-clicking on the Start menu button and then clicking Device Manager.
Step 2: Once the Device Manager is opened, expand Display Adapters, right-click on your onboard or dedicated graphics card entry, and then click Update Driver Software. This will open Update Software Wizard.
Step 3: Click the first option named Search automatically for updated driver software to let Windows 10 automatically search for driver updates and install the same, if available.
Once installed, you will see “Windows has successfully updated your driver software” message. If updates are not available, you will see “No updates were found” message.
Please note that updating to the newest version of the display driver might not fix the issue in some cases. In other words, you might see the error even when you are running the latest version of the display driver. If updating the driver didn’t help, please try the following solutions.
Method 2 of 4
Reinstall the display driver in Windows 10
If no updates are available for your display driver, reinstalling the display driver might address the issue. Here is how to reinstall the graphics driver in Windows 10.
Step 1: Open Device Manager (refer to the instructions in Method 1), expand Display Adapters, right-click on the graphics hardware name, and then click the Uninstall option.
NOTE: If you’re getting any error or having difficulty in uninstalling the driver, please use this dedicated Display Driver Uninstaller software.
Step 2: Click the OK button when you see the confirmation dialog. If you’re asked to reboot, restart your PC once to complete the uninstallation process.
Step 3: Download the newest version of the display driver from PC’s or graphics hardware manufacturer’s website, run the installer, and follow on-screen instructions to install the driver.
Method 3 of 4
Contact Microsoft support
You can contact the Microsoft support using the built-in Contact Support to get assistance from the support team. You can either schedule a call back from Microsoft support
or have a chat with the Microsoft support team to resolve the issue instantly.
The Contact Support app can be launched by typing Contact Support in the search box and then pressing Enter key.
Method 4 of 4
Reinstall Windows 10 without losing data
If none of the above-mentioned solutions are fixing the error, you can try reinstalling Windows 10. You can either perform a full reinstall or reinstall Windows 10 without losing your data.
I hope this helps!