How To Stop Windows 10 From Updating Drivers
Windows 10 tends to update drivers when it installs a major feature update. Sometimes, it will update them even when it’s installing a security update. This isn’t always a good thing because it often fails to find the right drivers for your system, installs generic drivers, or updates your drivers to a version that is problematic. If your drivers are often updated against your will after a Windows update, you can stop Windows 10 from updating drivers and prevent it from happening ever again.
We should warn you that if you decide to stop Windows 10 from updating drivers, it will be up to you to always check for and install new drivers for all your hardware components. You might be disabling the driver updates so that Windows 10 doesn’t force update your GPU drivers but this will also affect other drivers e.g., sound drivers.
Disable Driver Updates
Open File Explorer, paste the following in the location bar, and tap Enter.
Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers
This will open Control Panel’s Devices and Printers section. Expand the Devices section. Here you will see a list of all devices connected to your system, and your own system will appear as a device as well. It ought to have the same name as your PC and will be represented by a PC tower icon.
Right-click it and select ‘Device installation settings’ from the context menu.
A window will open asking if you want to automatically download manufacturers’ apps and custom icons for your device. It doesn’t say anything about drivers but the apps bit is basically that. Select the ‘No’ option, and click Save Changes. You will need administrative rights to save the change.
Drawbacks
As mentioned earlier, this is going to affect all your drivers. Running outdated drivers is never a good idea and you should avoid it at all costs. If you opt to use this fix, make sure you regularly check for driver updates.
An alternative to this solution is to download the driver for the one device that you don’t want to update e.g., a certain version of your GPU driver. Allow Windows 10 to update drivers when it does, and then roll back or install the one you have on disk. It’d tedious and naturally your workflow will be disrupted when Windows 10 upgrades the driver you don’t want it to but it’s either that or vigilance on your part regarding driver updates.
We should mention that sound and GPU aren’t the only drivers that have to be updated. Other drivers such as those for your LAN and WAN cards, USB controllers, and Bluetooth are also updated. Going about this manually will be take time so think carefully before you opt for this solution.
