Prevent Nvidia Driver updates

[Griffildur]

So you understand the complaints now and see how windows has forced drivers installs?

Not really, as I said, I installed that driver not windows. And this hasn't happened last week or so, it happened last year. So yeah ... haven't seen any forcing of updates. Leaving aside the fact that you can turn windows updates off completely and do them manually, which is how I am setup. Although to be fair I am on Windows 10 Enterprise and you can set it up completely as you see fit with various policies

 

[Griffildur]

Last night, my Nvidia graphics driver crashed playing a game. I thought alright, I'll just restart to reload the driver. What I didn't know was that Microsoft would immediately force their Intel HD4600 graphics driver update onto my computer, without even letting me know that was going on. So I restarted, probably in the middle of that update, Windows never told me "wait till this is installed" or anything, and the driver update I didn't need or want must have only partly installed, because the restart failed, and when I finally did get the computer going, it had all sorts of issues going on. The bus clock was going to 267, the CPU clock speed to over 6,000MHz. Not good, not fast. Everything freezing. 10 fps in GTA, 10 fps in Valley, screen flickering on desktop etc. Meantime, I had no idea all this Intel driver update business had gone on, so I tried all sorts of other things. It was only when I installed DDU and it listed Intel's HD4600 driver as having been installed moments after the Nvidia driver crash, that I thought yeah let's uninstall that. And hey presto it sorted everything, even the weird bus clock/clock speed readings.

This is very unprofessional from Microsoft, not to mention a pain in the ****. Wrong to force without asking, wrong to not let you know it's going on, and to top it off, not even the right driver this time.

There is an Update option called Restart Options". You combine that with "Change Active hours" option to tell Windows whether and when to schedule restarts so they don't happen during your gaming sessions. As for system drivers you can go to System / Advanced system settings / Hardware / Device Installation Settings and you can turn them off there.

 

[Danny75]

There is an Update option called Restart Options". You combine that with "Change Active hours" option to tell Windows whether and when to schedule restarts so they don't happen during your gaming sessions.

Thank you, I know and I have that set to how I want it. That's not what happened. Think you've misunderstood. I manually restarted. There was no indication that it was installing the Intel graphics driver.

 

[Griffildur]

Thank you, I know and I have that set to how I want it. That's not what happened. Think you've misunderstood. I manually restarted. There was no indication that it was installing the Intel graphics driver.

Sorry, in my previous reply I added some extra information there to prevent system drivers from being updated. That should do the trick

 

[Danny75]

Sorry, in my previous reply I added some extra information there to prevent system drivers from being updated. That should do the trick

Cheers. Do you know if that will/can affect other devices/apps negatively? Wish they had some more options there, like for GPU only.

 

[Genoma]

Does :

Control Panel | System | Advanced System Settings | Hardware | Device Installation Settings | No

Stop W10 from dowloading new drivers?

 

[IT Troll]

No, but it should stop the bloatware. However I got the 3D Vision and example files forced on me despite having the hardware apps option set to No in System/Advanced. I wouldn't class that as a core driver.

Here is a nice guide to the methods you can use to block driver updates. Note that Option 1 is no longer available in the current build.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/48277-driver-updates-windows-update-enable-disable-windows-10-a.html

 

[Pottsey]

Not really, as I said, I installed that driver not windows. And this hasn't happened last week or so, it happened last year. So yeah ... haven't seen any forcing of updates. Leaving aside the fact that you can turn windows updates off completely and do them manually, which is how I am setup. Although to be fair I am on Windows 10 Enterprise and you can set it up completely as you see fit with various policies

Most of us are not allowed to use Enterprise at home. We cannot turn forced windows updates off completely and do them manually. It’s shocking how you cannot see how people don't like the forced updates and cannot acknowledge there are forced drivers updates happening.

There is an Update option called Restart Options". You combine that with "Change Active hours" option to tell Windows whether and when to schedule restarts so they don't happen during your gaming sessions. As for system drivers you can go to System / Advanced system settings / Hardware / Device Installation Settings and you can turn them off there.

That doesn't work the active hours only covers a small timeslot so you cannot cover a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon. The other setting you talk about doesn't stop the forced driver installs. So we home users are still left with forced unwanted driver installs.

 

[Rroff]

The active hours implementation has to be one of the stupidest and laughable attempts to solve a problem ever.

People shouldn't have to go to the lengths of policy or registry editing, etc. to manage updates which potentially has other side effects (group policies aren't intended for home use and can break things) and makes it more complicated to apply critical security updates in a timely fashion.

 

[IT Troll]

So we home users are still left with forced unwanted driver installs.

The registry settings option in the link I posted should work for the Home edition. This only disables driver updates, not O/S updates.

 

[StrongSad]

i hate to bring this up again as I already posted it already...

I would highly recommend the action given to me by Disco P yesterday. It uses a Microsoft tool and works on home.

I would clear the windows update cache in disk cleanup, uninstall the new broken drivers, install the old working ones then run wushowhide to prevent windows from installing the new driver. Used that tool to block a touchpad driver from my laptop when windows 10 first came out and it's still blocked and on the original driver I installed.

see Disco P post

 

[Pottsey]

i hate to bring this up again as I already posted it already...

I would highly recommend the action given to me by Disco P yesterday. It uses a Microsoft tool and works on home.



see Disco P post

But that only stops this update it wont stop any new driver updates will it?

 

[Griffildur]

The active hours implementation has to be one of the stupidest and laughable attempts to solve a problem ever.

People shouldn't have to go to the lengths of policy or registry editing, etc. to manage updates which potentially has other side effects (group policies aren't intended for home use and can break things) and makes it more complicated to apply critical security updates in a timely fashion.

well, at least you don't get restarts during your gaming sessions. Now that would actually annoy me

 

[Rroff]

well, at least you don't get restarts during your gaming sessions. Now that would actually annoy me

Aslong as you remember to setup active hours so it covers your gaming session every time - personally I work varied shifts and 3-4 days of my week can be completely different to the other 3-4 days of the week. Active hours is yet another stupid and idiotic attempt to not have to deal with the real root of the problem (look at the clunky mess they are introducing with the next big update due to how it impacts on people doing hardcore streaming - rather than just tackle the real root of the problem once and for all).

Be nice if we saw some progress in the implementation of Windows update rather than taking it even more backwards than the mess in 7/8. Ideally I'd like critical security updates to be installed at boot up (aslong as that only added a few seconds or so to start up time) and have full control over feature updates so I can install them at a time of my choosing i.e. not end up spending precious hours at a weekend when I wanted to get a gaming session in looking at the Windows update screen stuck at 17% for 6 hours before it decides to do something.

I can't emphasis enough how backwards, stupid and wrong the model they are using for Windows update in 10 is.

 

[Griffildur]

Aslong as you remember to setup active hours so it covers your gaming session every time - personally I work varied shifts and 3-4 days of my week can be completely different to the other 3-4 days of the week. Active hours is yet another stupid and idiotic attempt to not have to deal with the real root of the problem (look at the clunky mess they are introducing with the next big update due to how it impacts on people doing hardcore streaming - rather than just tackle the real root of the problem once and for all).

Be nice if we saw some progress in the implementation of Windows update rather than taking it even more backwards than the mess in 7/8. Ideally I'd like critical security updates to be installed at boot up (aslong as that only added a few seconds or so to start up time) and have full control over feature updates so I can install them at a time of my choosing i.e. not end up spending precious hours at a weekend when I wanted to get a gaming session in looking at the Windows update screen stuck at 17% for 6 hours before it decides to do something.

I can't emphasis enough how backwards, stupid and wrong the model they are using for Windows update in 10 is.

I guess they went for as simple as possible, don't know how many people even bother to update their stuff or are concerned with the security of their installations. The updates is not the most dangerous thing in my eyes, but the default values of everything that has to do with security. Everything is turned on by default, unless you explicitly turn it off yourself

 

[Rroff]

I don't think (some changes aside) the default settings for Windows update are inherently bad - for a lot of mainstream users it might even be a good approach but the lack of control over a system that is not real world context aware is just stupid. There are so many people who use Windows in such varied ways that an indiscriminate automatic approach just doesn't work.

 

[IT Troll]

The third-party Windows Update MiniTool looks like an interesting option for those wanting more granular control over the updates which get installed. It still uses the MS Windows Update service but restores a classic Control Panel style UI.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_update_minitool.html

 

[Rroff]

Yeah meant to post that in another thread recently - the downside is a future major update could stop it working and/or you are at the mercy of the developer for ongoing compatibility with changes to Windows

 

[opethdisciple]

Been wrestling with this issue all evening. Tried to update to the latest Nvidia drivers.... but windows keep reinstalling the 376 drivers behind my back.....

Now I am left with an inconsistent state on my PC and now driver be it the latest or the the one I had before will install.

I tried DDU no joy.

I'm left with one option to do a windows reinstall.

But how to stop this loop again? As a reinstall will presumably just get me here again.

Does this happen with AMD drivers on Windows 10 or just Nvidia?

 

[IvanDobskey]

Yeh I've had trouble with win 10 and automatic driver updates

Really wish you could switch this off. Absolutely stupid.