New
#1
How can I stop Windows Update installing unnecessary RealTek Drivers?
One thing that really bugs me about Windows Update from Windows 10 and beyond is the inability to select which updates you want to install and not with checkboxes and the ability to hide updates, like on all older versions of Windows. With security and system updates, I am not overly bothered about them being installed automatically. But why does Windows 10 insist on installing drivers automatically, seemingly at random?
This is the situation - when you go into Windows Update in Settings, there will be a section called "View all optional updates" and in there is a sub-section called Driver Updates. Under this list, I see no drivers I want to install. For a start most of them don't seem to make much sense (such as the one I've got called "INTEL - SYSTEM - 1/1/1970" with no further details available for any of them) but I do see a few "RealTek" sound related entries in here too, that I don't want as my current sound drivers are the latest, so I don't select to install these. Unlike other Windows Updates, these optional driver ones have checkboxes to give you a decision to install or not.
However, I notice that with the RealTek ones, Windows will randomly install them when it wants - even though they are supposed to be optional. This happened last night, and it's a problem because I know the drivers I have for my onboard sound are the latest (they are May 2021 versions and I get them from the MSI website) and also once Windows installs these drivers from Windows Update, it makes my boot process last much longer (I made a post about my boot process taking longer a few months ago, turns out this was the culprit, as again Windows decided to install these RealTek drivers even though I didn't select them)
Why is it doing this and how can I prevent it? There must be a way to stop the so-called "Optional Updates" not actually being optional at all?
(the driver's showing as installed in Windows Update History above - I did not select these "optional updates" to install)
Thanks for any advice