Prevent updating windows 10 card drivers

It is a bad habit to install driver updates for your computer's hardware components even when you don't need to. However, you can always prevent the installation of Windows updates or block or hide individual updates. Pro or Enterprise users can also use the Group Policy Editor to prevent device-specific drivers from being installed.

Note that setting up Group Policy for a specific device allows you to block both automatic and manual driver updates. Therefore, if you want to update the driver yourself, then you will have to disable the corresponding policy, update the device, and then reinstall the Group Policy.

In order to block the installation of drivers for a device, you need to perform two main steps. First, we will use Device Manager to find the hardware ID. We will then work with the Group Policy Editor to define an update blocking rule that matches the device ID. Before starting the setup, make sure that the stable version of the driver is installed on the computer and the device is working correctly.

1. Find the device ID

The first step is to find the identifier of the device whose driver updates you want to block. To do this, we will use the Device Manager. Enter in the search bar of the Start menu or use the item "Device Manager" of the context menu of the Start button (invoked by the right mouse button).

In Device Manager, find the device for which you want to block driver updates. Right-click on it and select Properties.

Click the Details tab.

From the drop-down list, select the "Equipment ID" option to display the device-related identifiers.

Now all that remains is to copy the identifier values \u200b\u200bso that you have access to them when configuring Group Policy rules. The easiest way is to copy the ID to a text file. Select all values \u200b\u200bwhile holding down the Shift key and use the familiar Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V shortcuts to copy and paste, respectively. Be sure to save your changes to a text file for future access to this information.

2. Block installation and update of device drivers

Now that we know the device IDs, you can use the Group Policy Editor to make changes. We remind you again that this method works only in Windows Pro and Enterprise versions. Group Policy Home Editor is not available on Windows.

It is a powerful tool that, if used improperly, can disrupt your system. So use with caution. If your computer is part of a corporate network, then it is likely that it is running domain rules that have a higher priority than local rules.

Log in to the device administrator account and open the Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc to the search bar of the Start menu and pressing Enter.

In the editor window, follow the path Computer Configuration\u003e Administrative Templates\u003e System\u003e Device Installation\u003e... On the right, select the entry "Prohibit installation of devices with specified device codes" and double-click on it.

In the policy settings window, select the "Enabled" option and then click the "Show" button.

In the Output Content window, in the Values \u200b\u200bcolumn, enter the device IDs. Only one identifier can be entered at a time, so copy each ID one by one from a text file and paste it into the "Values" column. When you have finished entering the identifiers, click OK. If you are blocking updates for multiple devices, you can add hardware IDs for all devices in this window.

Then, on the policy settings page, click Apply and OK to save your changes. The only way to test if the rule works is to try to update the driver manually, or wait while Windows Update tries to install available updates. An error message will appear when trying to update.

Since the device is registered with the system, Windows Update can download driver updates for the device. However, they will not be installed, instead an error message will appear in the Windows Update window. You can always hide a specific update if you don't want to watch it in Update Center.

If at some point you change your mind and want to update the device again, go to the Group Policy Editor and disable the policy. This will need to be done even if you manually install driver updates.

When the policy is disabled, all identifiers are removed. If you re-enable it, you will need to re-enter all the ID values. Therefore, if you need to install updates only for a specific device, you can exclude its identifier and leave the policy active. Also, don't forget to save all IDs to a text file.

Of course, this is not the easiest solution, but using the Group Policy Editor provides more options than disabling updates completely.

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Installing drivers has always been a task that is understandable for people who understand computers, but not for ordinary users. That is why on most PCs you can find a situation when the drivers were installed only at the time of the first start of the system and were no longer updated. At the same time, Windows updates come, new applications and games are released that require updated drivers. To make it easier for Windows 10 users to keep the software of computer components up to date, Microsoft has introduced an automatic driver update feature into its operating system.

At first glance, automatic driver updates in Windows 10 are a clear plus, but in reality it is not always the case. The operating system loads the software it thinks is the best. The supplier of such drivers is Microsoft itself, while the hardware manufacturer can release a better version on its website, but the user will not receive it. It is not uncommon for your computer to run into software problems after automatically updating Windows drivers. For example, a driver error can lead to problems with sleep, hibernation, or a black screen, which can only be eliminated by a system restore.

There are a lot of options for problems that can result from a non-optimal automatically loaded driver, and some users prefer to disable this functionality. Below are the simplest ways to disable automatic driver updates in Windows 10.

Using the Show or Hide Updates utility

The easiest way to disable automatic driver updates on Windows 10 is to use the official utility released by Microsoft specifically for this purpose. A program called Show or Hide Updates appeared on the official website of the American corporation almost a year after the release of Windows 10. To use it to disable automatic driver updates, you must:

The utility will do all the necessary work and disable automatic driver updates for the selected devices.

Disable driver updates via system options

The operating system provides the ability to disable automatic loading and installation of drivers for hardware through parameters. To do this, the user must have administrator rights for the computer. Further it is necessary:

Unlike the previous method, this option is bad in that it does not allow you to disable automatic updating of Windows 10 drivers for selected devices.

Disable driver updates for individual devices via the registry

Slightly more complex option than the previous one, but much more convenient in a situation when you need to disable driver updates only for certain devices. Its essence lies in the fact that a command is created through the registry to prohibit software updates for an individual device. This is done as follows:

Important: If a device has several IDs, or you need to enter information about several devices, you need to create new parameters, the names of which will be 1 more than the name of the already created one.

Similarly, you can disable automatic driver updates in Windows 10 for specific devices. In this case, at any time, you can go into the registry editor and delete the created parameters so that the devices again receive automatically new software from Microsoft.

By automatic update of Windows 10, users can mean one of two things: regular in the top ten and a free update of their Windows 7 or 8 to the latest version. This article discusses how to disable Update Center in the Windows 10 operating system.

Automatic download of updates

Microsoft regularly releases new patches for their operating systems. These may include updated drivers, fixing critical bugs, new features, removing dangerous vulnerabilities, and so on.

By default, after installing the OS, the function of automatically loading these patches is enabled. The computer in the background downloads all the necessary files from the developer's servers, and installs them before shutting down. Several unpleasant disadvantages of this service follow from this:

For these reasons, many users want to stop auto-update your OS.

Configuring Windows 10 Update (Pro only)

A special service is responsible for the automatic download of new patches - Update Center... If you want to change any configurations (for example, enable or disable autoinstallation), you need to open the menu Center:

Now all updates (except critical security updates) will not be installed automatically. You can decide for yourselfwhen they should be turn on.

Initially, the Center settings worked only for the owners Windows 10 Pro, but in one of the last patches it was added for Home version. If you have installed Home, and changes to the Update Center settings are not available, you need to wait until the corresponding patch is installed on your computer.

App updates from the Windows Store

Another limitation for version owners Home - inability to disable auto-update of programsinstalled from the Windows 10 Store. Initially, this feature was available exclusively on Probut update KB3081448 corrected this situation.

To disable you need to run Score 10s and click on your account icon to the left of the search bar. In the menu that opens, select " Parameters". Set the switch opposite to the item " Update apps automatically"To position" Turn off».

If this function is not available on your computer, it means that you are the owner Windows 10 Home and haven't downloaded the latest patches yet. Install all available updatesto be able to stop auto-updating apps from the Store.

A trick for Wi-Fi connections

If you work for laptop (or your computer is equipped with Wi-Fi module), you can indirectly prohibit the installation of any patches on your Windows 10 operating system. This method works great on Pro, and on Home publications. The only limitation is you must be connected to the internet via wifi.

Follow the instructions:

The essence of this trick is that the operating system will assume that your Internet is currently not unlimited and will not download any updates... In this way you can stop installation absolutely all updates.

Disable autoloading drivers

If you don't want to trust your operating system downloading the latest drivers for your devices, this function can also be disabled. To do this, do the following:

Drivers downloaded with Windows 10 updates will no longer install independently.

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Often you need to use an older version of the driver for a number of reasons, but after installing system updates, you get the version of the driver that you do not need again and again, which, since you are reading this, is probably causing problems. Windows 10 has a special setting that you can use to change this behavior. Often, the OEM driver is better than the drivers installed by Windows Update, which can create a problem. You must be logged in with an administrator account to continue.

Windows 10 automatically installs drivers for your gadgets, video cards and other hardware. If it is necessary that the operating system does not automatically install device drivers, disable this function. Below are five working methods. Besides Parameters Windows, let's take a look at how to use: Group Policy for Windows 10 Pro and Registry Editor for the Home version. ( The registry method works in any version of Windows).

In Windows 10, you can turn off automatic driver updates. This is a useful feature, but a large number of users are not happy with the new driver versions installed with Windows 10 Update.

Note: We must warn you that if you prevent Windows 10 from installing drivers, you need to check and install new drivers manually, for all your hardware devices. You may want to prevent automatic driver updates for your graphics card, but this will also affect other drivers, such as the sound driver.

Method 1: Disable driver updates in Windows 10 using Device Installation Options.

1. Open "Explorer" files, paste in the address bar and press Enter.

Control Panel \\ Hardware and Sound \\ Devices and Printers

This will open the Devices and Printers section of Control Panel.

1. Expand the section "Devices"... Here you will see a list of all devices ( see picture above) connected to your system and your own system appears as a device. It will have the same name as your computer and will be represented by the PC icon.

1. Right-click on it and select from the context menu "Device Installation Options".

A dialog box will open asking if you want automatically download manufacturer apps and custom icons available for your devices... It doesn't say anything about drivers, but this setting is what you need to disable automatic driver loading.

1. Select an option "No" and press the button "Save changes"... You need administrator rights to save your changes.

1. Reboot your computer.

Method 2. Disable automatic installation of the device driver using the registry.

1. Open up.

1. Navigate to the next registry key.

1. On the right, edit or create a new 32 bit DWORD parameter named.

Note: Even if you are using 64 bit Windows, you must still create a 32 bit DWORD value.

1. Set a value for PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetworkequal 1 , this will disable the automatic driver update feature. Value equal 0 Allows the system to load drivers - automatically (this is the default).

1. Restart your computer.

Method 3. Disable automatic downloading of drivers in Windows 10 using the Group Policy Editor.

1. Open Local Group Policy Editor ().

1. In the Group Policy Editor, go to the following path:

Computer Configurations / Administrative Templates -\u003e Windows Components -\u003e Windows Update

1. Find and open the parameter - Don't include drivers in Windows updates

1. The Policy setting is not set by default, it is required Enable, Windows 10 will no longer automatically install drivers using Update Center.

1. Reboot your system.

After the restart, the Drivers will be excluded from the update search list.

If you want to enable driver updates again, you can easily do so by resetting the settings to their defaults.

Method 4 - Disable Automatic Driver Updates Using Group Policies.

1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor by clicking keyboard shortcut Win + R , we type in the field gpedit.msc we press OK.

1. In the Group Policy Editor go to:Computer Configuration -\u003e Administrative Templates→ System → Installing devices→ Device installation restrictions→ Prevent the installation of devices not described in other policy settings.

1. If the given parameter Switched offthen Windows will automatically install the driver for any device.

1. Now restart Windows 10, the whole system will not be able to update drivers by itself.

To set the default parameter, you must set the parameter to Not setor Disabled.

Method 5 - Cancel the automatic installation of drivers using the registry.

For Users Windows 10 Home, there is no Group Policy in this system and you must make these settings in registry.

This also works on Windows 10 Pro.

1. Open the registry editor by typing regedit in the window Execute. ()

Go to:

Note: If the section WindowsUpdateno, just create it.

1. In the new section, Create a new DWORD (32-bit) named and 1.

For those users who use Windows 10 x64 bit version Home or Proyou need to edit one more registry branch:

If section WindowsUpdatealso no, create it.

Create a new DWORD (32-bit) parameter named ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdateand set its value to 1.

1. Reboot your computer.

If you want the system to install drivers automatically using Windows Update, set the ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate value to 0 .

Windows 10 is an operating system that has one distinguishing feature from other operating systems. This updates the system and drivers by default without notifying the user. As a result, as practice has shown, many problems arise from updating current and working drivers to newer and unsuitable versions. To prevent driver updates in Windows 10, follow these guidelines.

Blocking driver updates via Control Panel

To prevent automatic driver updates, you need to click "Start" and select "Control Panel". Next, select the type of display "Small icons" and click "System". Click on the link "Change parameters".

A new window will open. Go to the "Devices and Printers" tab. Select your PC, right-click on the image and select "Device Installation Options".

In this section, there will be only one request "Automatically download manufacturer apps and custom icons ...". We change the mark to the answer "No". Click "Save".

Reboot your computer.

Editing Registry Editor to Disable Driver Updates

You can disable driver updates by using Registry Editor. To do this, press "Win + R" and enter "regedit" in the "Run" line.

A new window will open. Go to the branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE", "Software", "Microsoft", "Windows", "CurrentVersion" and "DriverSearching". If the last folder is not there, you need to right-click on "CurrentVersion" and select "New" and "Section". We assign an identical name to the section.

Then we save the changes and reboot the PC.

Disable driver updates through the local group policy editor

Windows 10 Local Group Policy Editor includes a driver update feature. To disable it, you need to do the following. Press "Win + R" and enter "gpedit.msc".

Go to the section "Computer Configuration", then "Administrative Templates", "System" and "Driver Installation". Double-click to open the "Disable Windows Update Request ..." option.

A new window will open. We put the mark "Enabled" and click "OK" or "Apply".

Reboot your PC.

Using any of the above methods, you can disable automatic driver updates and avoid many future problems.