Perhaps not everyone knows that Windows 10, by default, after a clean installation, downloads drivers for your hardware automatically. On the one hand, this is very good for those who are not very knowledgeable about computers and do not know how to properly install drivers themselves, but for more experienced users this function will be completely unnecessary. Since the download occurs in the background and the user does not see which driver is being downloaded. Well, or you already have the necessary drivers that you prepared in advance, then you also won’t need Windows 10 to download anything itself.
Therefore, in this article I will tell you how to disable automatic driver installation in Windows 10. We will look at the most convenient methods, and you will choose the best one for yourself. As always, I will show all the methods using the latest build of Windows 10 as an example. Well, as always, I recommend updating to the latest stable build of Windows 10.
Method 1. How to disable automatic installation of Windows 10 drivers
This means that Windows 10 will not automatically download manufacturer apps and custom icons available for your devices. This method is simple and fast. But I also recommend using one more of the following methods with it.
Method 2: How to disable automatic driver installation using Group Policy Editor
Method 3: How to disable automatic driver installation using Registry Editor
If such a section or parameter does not exist, then simply create it. Well, of course, to return everything back, just change the value back to 1, which should be the default.
Method 4. How to disable driver installation in Windows 10 using a utility from Microsoft
Since many Windows 10 users have been thinking about this since the transition to the new operating system, Microsoft released the Show or Hide Updates utility. In essence, this is the troubleshooter that we are used to seeing in Windows. It searches for all drivers with which you may have problems and gives you the opportunity to disable driver updates, you can disable them one by one.
You can download it on the Microsoft website using the link.
In this article, we looked at ways to disable automatic driver installation in Windows 10. In principle, I think this innovation is interesting. Since in most versions Windows 10 downloads good drivers, but if you have problems with drivers then this article will be interesting for you. Don't forget to subscribe to updates and share the article on social networks.
With the advent of Windows 10, updates have become a mandatory process, which Microsoft no longer allows to interfere with. Although in all our instructions we advise users not to disable operating system updates, sometimes it makes sense to prevent it from installing Part updates. We are talking about installing and updating drivers, which by default are downloaded along with Windows updates.
Why do this? Disabling automatic driver installation in Windows gives the user complete control over the operation of his hardware. This is especially true for those whose work process is highly dependent on the stability of the computer. If a buggy driver comes out that automatically installs and breaks something, the user has to spend time and resources rolling back the drivers. With manual installation, the PC owner has the opportunity to decide for himself. If information appears about a bug in the driver or unstable operation, the computer simply remains on the previous driver and waits for the new one to come out. Additionally, manual installation helps avoid driver incompatibilities in Windows Update. There are cases when installing a driver from Windows Update led to bugs in the computer's operation, which were then cured by removing the driver and installing another version from the manufacturer's official website.
Disable automatic driver updates
Please note that disabling automatic driver downloads may require you to manually install drivers for connected devices.
Through the Group Policy Editor
For reference: This method is only relevant for devices running Windows 10 Professional. Windows 10 Home users need to use the third method.
If this method does not work, return the modified parameter to the state Not specified and then enable the option Don't include drivers in Windows updates, which is located at Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Windows Update.
Via Registry Editor
This method is for Windows 10 Home users. Use it if the first method did not work. It also works on Windows 10 Professional.
Often, for a number of reasons, you need to use an older version of the driver, but after installing system updates, you again and again end up with a version of the driver that you do not need, 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, as opposed to drivers installed by Windows Update, which can create a problem. To continue, you must be logged in with an administrator account.
Windows 10 automatically installs drivers for your gadgets, video cards and other equipment. If you want the operating system not to automatically install device drivers, disable this function. Below are five working methods. Besides Parameters Windows, let's look at how to use: group policies 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 versions of drivers installed using 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 video card, but this will also affect other drivers, such as the audio driver.
Method 1: Disable driver updates in Windows 10 using Device Setup Options.
- Open File Explorer, paste into 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.
- Expand section "Devices". Here you will see a list of all devices ( see picture above) connected to your system and your own system will appear as a device. It will have the same name as your computer and will be represented by a PC icon.
- 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.
- Select an option "No" and press the button "Save changes". You will need administrator rights to save changes.
- Restart your computer.
Method 2: Disable automatic device driver installation using the registry.
- Open .
- Go to the next registry key.
- On the right, change or create a new 32-bit DWORD value named .
Note: Even if you are using 64-bit Windows, you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
- Set the value for PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork equal 1 , this will disable the automatic driver update feature. Value equal 0 Allows the system to load drivers - automatically (this is the default value).
- Restart your computer.
Method 3: Disable automatic driver downloads in Windows 10 using Group Policy Editor.
- Open the Local Group Policy Editor ().
- In the Group Policy Editor, go to the following path:
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Update
- Find and open the parameter - Don't include drivers in Windows updates
- The Default Policy setting is not set; it is required Turn on, now Windows 10 will not automatically install drivers using Update Center.
- Reboot your system.
After the reboot, the Drivers will be excluded from the update search list.
If you want to enable driver updates again, you can easily do so by returning the settings to default.
Method 4 - Disable automatic driver updates using group policies.
- Open the Local Group Policy Editor by clicking keyboard shortcut Win+R , type in the field gpedit.msc click OK.
- In the Group Policy Editor, go to:Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates→ System → Device installation→Device Installation Restrictions→Prevent the installation of devices that are not described by other policy settings.
- If this parameter Switched off, which means Windows will automatically install the driver for any device.
- Now restart Windows 10; the system will not be able to update drivers on its own.
To set the default parameter, you need to set the parameter to Not specified or Disabled.
Method 5 - Cancel automatic installation of drivers using the registry.
For Users Windows 10 Home This system does not have Group Policy and you must make these settings in register.
This also works on Windows 10 Pro.
- Open Registry Editor by typing regedit in the window Execute. ()
Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdateNote: If the section WindowsUpdate no, just create it.
- In the new section, Create a new DWORD value (32-bit) with the name and 1.
For those users who use Windows 10 x64 bit version Home or Pro You need to make an edit to one more branch of the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdateIf the section WindowsUpdate also no, create it.
Create a new DWORD value (32-bit) named ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate and set its value to 1.
- Restart your computer.
If you want the system to install drivers automatically using Windows Update, set the ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate value to 0 .
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Windows 10 automatically downloads and installs all necessary device drivers as soon as you connect to the Internet. This eliminates the need to manually download and install drivers. However, if you are using older hardware devices such as old printers or video cards, the drivers that Windows 10 installs by default may cause problems. Also, some of the Windows 10 users want to simply prevent the downloading of drivers for a specific hardware video card card or others. To deal with this, simply follow the instructions below and you can easily stop Windows 10 from downloading and installing drivers for a specific selected hardware device .
Since we want to block driver updates not for all devices, but for a specific hardware device, we must find out its unique hardware identifier. To view it, open "Device Manager" by right-clicking on the button Start.
Once you have opened Device Manager, locate the hardware for which you want to prevent automatic driver updates and installation. In my case, I will choose the video card in my old laptop. Right click on the device and select the option "Properties".
In the hardware properties window, go to the tab "Intelligence", and then select from the drop-down menu under "Property".
This action will show you the unique hardware IDs of the target device. Select all the specified IDs, right-click and select the option "Copy".
We will need these identifiers several times, so we will paste them and save them into a text file for convenience.
Prevent driver installation for a specific device using the Group Policy Editor.
Press Win + R, and enter or copy and paste - and press the key Enter to open the Windows 10 Local Group Policy Editor.
After opening the Group Policy Editor, go to the " Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Restrictions on Device Installations.»
Now find the policy and double click on it to change its properties.
In the policy properties window, enable it by selecting Included, and then click on the button "Show" in the Settings category.
This action will open a window. In this window, you must enter all the hardware identifiers copied earlier one by one.
After the data is filled in, click on the button "OK" to save changes. In the future, if you have other hardware devices for which you want to stop or prevent driver updates, simply add new hardware device IDs in the same order.
In the main program window, click on the button "OK" to save changes.
Reboot the system, we have prohibited updating graphics card drivers in Windows 10. Note, keep in mind that Windows will still download the driver for this hardware, but will not install it.
To return the default settings, set the policy checkbox to " Not specified" or " Disabled».
Prevent driver installation for a specific device using Registry Editor
If you are using Windows 10 Home OS, then you need to change the registry. To block driver installation, press Win + R and enter or copy and paste regedit to .
Follow the next path.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceInstall\Restrictions\DenyDeviceIDsIf you don't have partitions:
- DeviceInstall
- Restrictions
Just create them.
In the created section, create a new parameter named " 1 »
Double-click on the newly created parameter, and enter one of the hardware IDs that we copied earlier and click on the button OK».
Since we have multiple hardware IDs for our device (video card), we need to create three more string parameters and name them like 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. For each value, enter an additional hardware ID and save it. Once you're done with everything, it should look something like this. As you can see, I created several string parameters and added the IDs of my video card.
Reboot the system for the changes to take effect. To get everything back, simply delete the created partitions.
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As you've probably already noticed, as soon as we connect a new device to the computer, Windows immediately starts looking for drivers for it and installing it right away. Sometimes this can be useful, and sometimes not.
Let's say we connected some device and want to install our own driver of a certain version on it. Windows 10 does not allow us to do this and begins to independently impose and install those that it considers necessary. This feature can be disabled in two ways.
Via control panel
To do this, right-click on the “Start” button and select the item from the drop-down menu "Control Panel":
We put "View: Large Icons" and go to the “System” section
In the window that opens, go to the “Equipment” tab and click on the button "Device Installation Options":
A window opens in which we put the switch in position “No, give a choice”, and you can also put the switch in position "Never install drivers from Update Center", if you don't want to install them from there.
Save the changes made
Through the Group Policy Editor
Right-click on the “Start” button and select “Run” from the drop-down menu:
In the window that opens, write the command gpedit.msc, and then OK.
We get to the Group Policy Editor. We follow the path:
Computer configuration - administrative templates - system - device installation - device installation restrictions.
On the right side of the editor, select the option "Prohibit the installation of devices not described by other policy settings" and double-click on it with the left mouse button:
In the window that opens, move the switch to the “Enabled” position. Read the help for this parameter and click “OK”.
That's basically it, we were able to disable automatic driver verification.
And also watch a video on the topic:
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