Windows force installing drivers is a serious problem

I am not exaggerating when I say that it has become near impossible to properly set up a Windows computer. All I want is to be able to choose which drivers I have on my system by manually downloading and installing them. Is this unreasonable? I think not.

I needed to install Windows on a laptop today and I set "Do not include drivers with Windows Updates". Only later, after some searching, did I find out that it is widely known (1),(2) that Windows ignores this setting now.

Even before I found out about that, I did not fully trust Windows to honor my settings, so I disabled the Windows Update service, hoping this would buy me some time to manually install the drivers that I needed. This decision was subverted by Windows within minutes, and I ended up with 29 drivers + their apps on my system shortly after that.

I also set sysdm.cpl \ Hardware \ Device installation Settings to "No". Didn't help.



Of course, this is bad because,

• half of the drivers that Windows is pushing, are garbage (wtf is HP Audio Center?)
• the other half is wanted and needed but is the wrong version. (Example: Intel UHD Graphics: yes, please, but not with a driver date from 2021)
• drivers/apps that I actually need are still missing (e.g. Intel Optane)

So, a workaround is needed. Any ideas?
Best I could come up with is: Set up AD, set up WSUS, exclude drivers, domain-join laptop. Way to complicated.

Would it work to keep the laptop offline, then bringing my own drivers on a thumb drive? Or would Windows Update override that later anyway?

dalchina said:

Hi, consider
Enable or Disable Driver Updates in Windows Update in Windows 10

Hi, that tutorial is about setting the group policy setting. I already mentioned that I tried that, and it didn't work. The screenshot I posted also shows that.

dalchina said:

There are proper ways to do that, frequently discussed and described

The sources I posted mentioned that it doesn't work anymore. Windows ignores this setting now. I posted two sources. Lots of people (if not all?) are getting drivers installed despite having set the policy.

dalchina said:

You have Pro; set updates to Notify in Group Policy (described in the relevant tutorial) and you will get no Windows updates- only notification of them- until you approve them.

If it allows me to individually check/uncheck every update/driver. It is worth a try.

Have you tried the first part of this article?

I run Tiny10 so no such issues. Microsoft, in their infinite bipedal, chimp low IQ thought process has tossed the PC user out the windows and is trying hard to mimic a BS tablet/smartphone platform. That's why the UI looks like flat crap among other round about and unnecessary ways of accessing and dong something in 10 where a click into the Control Panel is all you need. This crap started in Winblows 8 and it's been down hill and into hell from there. To add insult to injury, Redmond turns the user into their cash cow via telemetry.

Hi, ty for the replies. I have done some further testing. Reinstalled Windows again, tried the "notify" option. The tldr is: Still no solution, short of completely disabling Windows update or completely disconnecting from the internet, or connecting the computer to a WSUS server.

A few things that have been suggested here:

Setting Updates to notify in group policy: Didn't work. As soon as I clicked search for updates, it automatically downloaded and installed all updates and drivers.

It also showed me this notification.

F22 Simpilot said:

Have you tried the first part of this article?

Yes. It didn't help/didn't do anything.

Ghot said:

@Ben Hastings
As others have mentioned... go here and do Option 2, steps 3 thru 8
Enable or Disable Driver Updates in Windows Update in Windows 10

This is just the same as I have already done. This registry key is set anyway, when you do option 1 of the tutorial.