Excel crashing with video driver error Intel Graphics HD 530

This note is regarding crashes of Excel on Windows 7 when searching rows and columns. Excel will crash with a video driver error (also Skype crashes).

The fix appears to be newer drivers for the Intel chip (when installing, some people recommend to untick the box to enable Aero), but if you still have issues as some people do, you can hack the registry to increase the timeout of the video driver.

From Microsoft’s site here:

To Change the Graphic device timeout, use the following steps.

1. Exit all Apps and Programs.
2. Press the WinKey+R keys to display the Run dialog.
3. Type  regedit.exe  and click OK to open the registry editor.
4. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers

1. With the GraphicsDrivers key selected, on the Edit menu, click New, and then select the following registry value from the drop-down menu specific to your version of Windows (32 bit, or 64 bit):

(NOTE: The TdrDelay name is Case Sensitive)

For 32 bit Windows

a. Select DWORD (32-bit) value.

b. Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter.

c. Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and click OK.

For 64 bit Windows

     a. Select QWORD (64-bit) value.

b. Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter.

 c. Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and clickOK.

Close the registry editor and then restart your computer for the changes to take effect.