This is the third time in the past 2 years of using W10, at each update, my HP Realtek audio driver gets messed up leaving me without audio period. Is there a way to protect my drivers (specially the audio) from the W10 updates ?
Last edited by Rickerz; 23 Dec 2019 at 21:30.
One option is to backup and restore drivers:
Backup and Restore Device Drivers in Windows 10
This is a trial and error method:
a) open device manager
b) identify the driver
c) right click disable
d) perform the upgrade
e) re-enable after the upgrade
Thanks for the reply, I am not really asking how to cure more like I want THE PREVENTION to stop W10 messing with my Audio drivers that is. I do have the original drivers archived and used them to effectively get back my Realtek audio driver. I want to stop W10 going after that specific driver if possible. As to experimenting , I already did, 3 Times in the last 3 W10 major updates.
There is no known preventative step for all drivers as each driver is individually evaluated.
The best is likely what you have already done.
This is some information on drivers:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...sta-and-later-
The setupapi logs can be scanned:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...rade/log-files
There is only 1 sure way to prevent Windows 10 from updating your drivers --- have newer drivers installed on your computer than what Microsoft would offer in their automatic driver updates.
For regular non-gaming pc's, you may try to download a newer Realtek audio driver from current HP computer lineup and see if your hardware ID is in the inf file. If yes, then you can just install it on your old HP computer. That's how I managed to update my Acer computer which has old 2017 Realtek audio drivers on the Acer website with 2019 Acer UAD drivers. Then I went to MUC to update to 8832 driver.
I will never have Microsoft automatically updating my drivers because I have newer drivers than their automatic update offers.
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