While simply plugging in the device and letting Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7 install the driver automatically is cool, you may for some reason prefer not to have the Driver installed automatically. You can if you wish, stop windows from installing the drivers automatically. You can stop automatic Driver updates in Windows 10/8/7. If you follow this tutorial, you can disable automatic driver installation for specific devices in Windows 10, using Control Panel, Windows Registry, or Group Policy Editor.
Disable Automatic Driver Updates
1] Using Control Panel
While it is recommended that you let make Windows download Drivers & Realistic Icons automatically if you wish, you can stop Windows 10/8 from automatically installing Drivers, open Control panel > Advanced System settings > Hardware tab > Device Installation settings.
You can also access it by opening Control Panel > Device & printers > Right-click the Computer under Devices and select Device Installation settings.
You will be asked, Do you want to download driver software and realistic icons for your devices?
Here select No, let me choose what to do. Click Save changes.
2] Using Group Policy Editor
Type gpedit.msc in start search and hit Enter to open Group Policy Editor.
Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation > Device Installation.
Now in the RHS pane double click on Prevent Installation of Devices not described by other policy settings.
This policy setting allows you to prevent the installation of devices that are not specifically described by any other policy setting.
If you enable this policy setting, Windows is prevented from installing or updating the device driver for any device that is not described by either the “Allow installation of devices that match any of these device IDs”, the “Allow installation of devices for these device classes”, or the “Allow installation of devices that match any of these device instance IDs” policy setting.
If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Windows is allowed to install or update the device driver for any device that is not described by the “Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs”, “Prevent installation of devices for these device classes” policy setting, “Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device instance IDs”, or “Prevent installation of removable devices” policy setting.
Set it at Enabled. Click Apply / OK.
3] Using Windows Registry
If your Windows does not have Group Policy, you can navigate to the following key in Windows Registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching
Set the value of SearchOrderConfig to 0 to block driver updates. A value of 1 allows downloads of driver updates.
Restart your computer.
NOTE: These options don’t prevent the installation of those drivers whose device IDs, device instance IDs, and device classes are added in Group Policy for automatic installation. If you want to prevent the automatic updates of all the drivers, then you can check this post on how to Block Driver Updates via Windows Quality Update.
Stop automatic driver installation or reinstallation
If a Device Driver has already been installed and you want to remove it and then stop that particular driver from being update, do the following:
- Uninstall the Driver via Devices Manager
- Use the Show or Hide Updates Tool in Windows 10 to block the particular driver update.
Hope this helps.
