STATUS_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_MISMATCH 0x401E0117 Fix

Kernel and user-mode graphics drivers are out of sync. Usually means a half-finished GPU driver update or a Windows Update that swapped one half. Reinstall the driver clean.

Quick answer: Your kernel-mode display driver and user-mode driver are different versions. Do a clean reinstall of the GPU driver with DDU, then reboot before letting Windows touch anything.

This one shows up as a blue screen with STATUS_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_MISMATCH and stop code 0X401E0117, usually right after a driver update you didn't finish, or after Windows Update quietly half-installed a GPU driver in the background. I had a client last month — small design shop, three workstations — where two of them bluescreened on login because Windows Update pushed an Intel iGPU driver while NVIDIA's installer was mid-flight. The kernel side got the new one, the user-mode side kept the old one, and Windows doesn't like that at all. The dxgkrnl driver compares versions between the two and crashes the box when they don't match.

It also nags people who roll back one component but not the other, or who install a driver in Safe Mode and forget the user-mode bits never loaded.

Fix it: clean reinstall, in order

Boot into Safe Mode. Shift-click Restart from the power menu, then Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart > press 4. You need Safe Mode so Windows can't reload a half-broken driver while you're working.
Grab DDU. Display Driver Uninstaller from Wagnardsoft. It's the only tool I trust for this — the built-in uninstaller leaves registry keys and leftover .sys files that cause this exact mismatch to come back. Download it, extract, don't run yet.
Uninstall the current driver with DDU. Launch DDU, pick your GPU vendor (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel), and click Clean and restart. If you have both an iGPU and a discrete GPU, do them one at a time — DDU handles that poorly if you try both at once.
Block Windows Update from reinstalling a driver behind your back. This step matters. Run gpedit.msc and go to:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage updates offered from Windows Update > Do not include drivers with Windows Updates

Set it to Enabled. On Home editions without gpedit, use this registry key instead:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
Value name: ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate
Type: DWORD
Value: 1

Install the driver from the vendor's site. Not Windows Update, not the OEM's copy from 2019. Go to nvidia.com/drivers, amd.com/support, or intel.com/content/www/us/en/download-center. Match your exact GPU model. During install, tick Custom installation and check Perform a clean installation.
Reboot normally. Don't skip this. The user-mode driver (nvlddmkm.dll or the AMD/Intel equivalent) only loads on a full boot.
Verify versions match. Open Device Manager, expand Display adapters, right-click your GPU > Properties > Driver tab. Check the version there, then run dxdiag and confirm the same version shows under the Display tab. If they differ, you're back to step 3 — DDU didn't finish properly or a pending update snuck in.

If that doesn't do it

Try an older driver. Some driver branches ship with a known kernel/user mismatch on certain GPUs. Roll back two or three versions. NVIDIA's Game Ready vs Studio branches can behave differently — Studio drivers are usually more stable for this, and if you're not gaming, just use those.

Check for corrupted system files. Run these from an elevated prompt:

sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Rare, but I've seen a busted dxgkrnl.sys cause the same stop code regardless of driver version.

Test in a different PCIe slot or reseat the card. If the mismatch shows up right after moving the machine or adding hardware, a half-seated GPU can present weird driver errors. It sounds like folklore until it isn't.

Check for a GPU firmware update. Some AMD cards and older Intel iGPUs have VBIOS/firmware patches that fix kernel-side version reporting. Worth 10 minutes if nothing else works.

Prevention

Don't let Windows Update handle your GPU drivers. Ever. Set that policy in step 4 and forget it. Update from the vendor directly, and when you do, close everything else first — no browsers, no games, no OBS. Half the cases of this error I fix are because someone kicked off a driver install and started a game in the same two minutes. Windows finished one of the two halves, the game loaded the other, boom. Also: if you dual-boot or use a laptop with switchable graphics, update both GPUs in the same session, not one today and the other next week.