NVIDIA Profile Inspector command-line reference

All switches at a glance

NPI 3.x understands twelve kinds of argument. The README lists seven. The other five are marked below. The last column says what we have seen ourselves: “works” means we ran it in our lab, in demo mode (-mock) or with no driver, as the lab has no NVIDIA GPU. “untested” means the row comes from NPI’s code only. CODE · NPI 2994194

2.x knew only five of these: a single .nip file, -silentImport, -silent, -createCSN, -showOnlyCSN and -disableScan. It accepted just the first .nip it was given. CODE · NPI 2.4.0.34

How NPI reads the command line

• Whole argument, -name form only. A switch must equal the whole argument. The match ignores case. /silentImport, --silentImport and -silentImport=1 are not switches.
• Unknown arguments vanish. A typo produces no error and no usage text. If nothing seems to happen, check the spelling first.
• Only existing .nip paths count. A path that does not exist, or an existing file with another extension, is ignored without a warning. Quote paths that contain spaces.
• No console output. NPI is a Windows program without a console. Everything it says is a message box, a message inside its window, or nothing. A script cannot read its output.
• Administrator rights first. The manifest requests administrator rights, so Windows shows a User Account Control prompt before any switch runs. LAB · CLI · F03
• One job per start. If several are given, only the first of these runs: -createCSN, then import, then -exportCustomized.

Import from the command line

nvidiaProfileInspector.exe "C:\Backups\all_profiles.nip"

NPI imports the file, shows “Profile(s) imported successfully!” and exits without opening the main window. With -silentImport it shows nothing at all and exits with code 0. With -mergeImport it shows the same success message. LAB · CLI · F21

Which mode runs. NPI picks the first rule that applies: CODE · NPI 2994194

1. -mergeImport gives Merge. It wins if -replaceImport is also present.
2. -replaceImport gives Replace.
3. -silentImport or -silent alone gives Replace, as in 2.x.
4. Otherwise NPI shows “Import Profiles” with two cards, “Replace” and “Merge”, but only if at least one profile in the files already exists. If every profile in the files is new, it uses Replace without asking. Cancelling stops the import.

Replace resets each profile named in the file and then writes the file’s values, so a setting you changed that is not in the file is lost. Merge keeps everything and overwrites only the values in the file. The .nip page explains the two with an example.

Several files. Give more than one path and NPI reads them all first, merges profiles of the same name in memory and writes the result once. If two files set the same setting, the last file wins. CODE · NPI 2994194

Errors still show a box. In silent mode the success and warning boxes are hidden, but an exception box (“Import Error”) is shown anyway. On a PC where nobody can click OK, a script waiting for NPI to exit will wait for that box.

Importing into a running NPI

If NPI is already open, a second start does not open a second window. It hands the file to the open one and exits with code 0, and the open window imports it and updates its profile list. LAB · CLI · F22 Without -silentImport the open window comes to the front. The mode switches work here too: NPI passes the mode on to the running window.

Export from the command line

nvidiaProfileInspector.exe -exportCustomized

NPI checks for the driver, writes CustomProfiles_<yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss>.nip and exits, with no message on success. In demo mode the file appeared next to the exe and the exit code was 0. LAB · CLI · F24 Without a driver it shows the usual driver error and writes no file. LAB · CLI · F10

• Where. In the folder that holds nvidiaProfileInspector.exe, not the current folder. NPI’s own commit message says the opposite, the code does what is written here. CODE · NPI 2994194
• What it includes. Every profile you created, and every NVIDIA profile in which you changed at least one value. Only your values are written, not the ones NVIDIA ships. CODE · NPI 2994194
• Encoding. The file says utf-16 in its XML header but is UTF-8 with a byte order mark. NIP Studio and NPI read both. LAB · CLI · F24

Other switches

-createCSN

Writes the CustomSettingNames.xml that is built into the exe to the current folder, then exits with code 0, with no window and no driver check. The number of named settings depends on the version: 84 in 2.4.0.4, 123 in 2.4.0.29, 117 in 3.0.2.1 and 119 in 3.0.2.3. LAB · CLI · F11 If you leave that file next to the exe, NPI loads it instead of the built-in copy and shows “CSN file override”. Remove or rename the file to go back. CODE · NPI 2994194 The settings it names are explored on the Settings Explorer.

-showOnlyCSN

Starts the window with only the “Common (CSN)” source switched on. The README calls it “only customized settings”, which is not what the code does: it does not filter to values you changed. That is a separate toggle in the window, “Show active or modified settings only”. Because new installs already default to Common only, the switch mostly matters if you once turned other sources on. Not run by us.

-disableScan

Starts without the background scan that finds your modified profiles and collects the predefined values that feed the “Predefined Scan” source. Export of customized profiles still works without it. We have not timed the difference. CODE · NPI 2994194

-useSoftwareRendering and -disableTransparency

Two workarounds for windows or drop-down lists that do not draw correctly on some systems, added in 3.0.2.2 after issue 488. The first forces software rendering for the whole window, the second turns off popup transparency and animation. Both apply only when the window opens, and we could not test either without the affected setup. The troubleshooting page covers display problems.

-mock

A developer and test switch. It skips the driver check, never loads NVIDIA’s library, and replaces the driver with an in-memory fake. The title reads “NVIDIA PROFILE INSPECTOR - MOCK!”. The status bar reads “Driver unavailable”, and the database holds one profile, “Base Profile”. LAB · CLI · F12

It is not a demo of your own settings and nothing is saved to a driver. Profiles you create, import or change exist only until you close the window. It is how our lab ran the import and export tests above, which is why those results carry the note that they are demo-mode results.

Scripts

Three PowerShell examples and one scheduled-task example. All of them use the real switch spelling. We have not run any of them on a PC with an NVIDIA GPU, and our lab has no PowerShell run recorded for them, so read each one, change the paths and test it by hand once. Run them in an elevated PowerShell, because NPI needs administrator rights.

Back up all customized profiles to a dated folder

PS> $p = Start-Process 'C:\Tools\NVIDIA Profile Inspector\nvidiaProfileInspector.exe' -ArgumentList '-exportCustomized' -Wait -PassThru
PS> Get-ChildItem 'C:\Tools\NVIDIA Profile Inspector' -Filter 'CustomProfiles_*.nip' | Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending | Select-Object -First 1

The download is the full script. NPI gives no output, so the script looks for the new CustomProfiles_*.nip file, moves it into a folder named after today’s date, and exits with code 2 if no file appeared.

Re-apply a backup after a driver update

The script on the driver updates page imports your .nip with Merge. Download reapply-nip-after-driver-update.ps1. To run it at every logon, register a task that runs it with the highest privileges:

PS> $action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute 'powershell.exe' -Argument '-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Tools\NVIDIA Profile Inspector\reapply-nip-after-driver-update.ps1"'
PS> $trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -AtLogOn
PS> $principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal -UserId $env:USERNAME -LogonType Interactive -RunLevel Highest
PS> Register-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'NPI re-apply profiles' -Action $action -Trigger $trigger -Principal $principal

Use -mergeImport in a scheduled task, never -replaceImport or a bare -silentImport: the backup would overwrite every change you made since it was exported.

Import a standard profile on many PCs

PS> Start-Process 'C:\Tools\NVIDIA Profile Inspector\nvidiaProfileInspector.exe' -ArgumentList '-silentImport', '"\\fileserver\lan\npi\standard-profiles.nip"' -Wait

This uses Replace, which suits a standard image: every PC ends up with the same values for the profiles in the file. It logs the exit code to C:\ProgramData\npi-import.log. Check the share path is readable by an administrator, and try it on one PC before the rest.

Exit codes and errors

NPI does not document exit codes. What we saw in the lab, in demo mode: LAB · CLI · F11, F21, F22, F24

Errors are message boxes, not exit codes. With no NVIDIA driver, every driver-touching call, including -exportCustomized and any import, shows “No compatible NVIDIA Driver was detected on your system. Your NVIDIA GPU might be disabled.” in 3.x, or the “DrsServiceLocator” exception in 2.x, and writes nothing. LAB · CLI · F07, F08, F10 The exit code in that case was not recorded in our lab, and no real-driver exit codes exist here, so do not treat code 0 as proof that a profile changed. Check the result: look for the exported file, or open NPI and look at “View Modified Profiles”. The full message list is on the errors page. untested Exit codes on a real driver.

Related switches that are not arguments

A few behaviours live in files instead of switches. A file named DisableUpdateCheck.txt next to the exe skips the update check. A settings.xml in the current folder is used instead of the one in %LOCALAPPDATA%\nvidiaProfileInspector, which makes NPI portable. Crash logs go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\nvidiaProfileInspector\Logs. CODE · NPI 2994194