Tweaks Windows Windows 10

Disable automatic device driver download in Windows 10

[symple_box color=”yellow” fade_in=”false” float=”center” text_align=”left” width=””] You need to be signed into an account with Administrator rights to change system settings.
[/symple_box] [symple_box color=”blue” fade_in=”false” float=”center” text_align=”left” width=””] The screenshot and video instruction has been shot within Windows 10 (tech preview), however the steps are same in Windows 8.
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Windows 8 and Windows 10 download device drivers by default. But in some situations you don’t want that, such as:

  • Newer drivers are causing issues with your system
  • You want to use the original driver instead of the driver Windows provides you
  • You want to see if the old driver works better.
  • You got a newer driver then Windows provides.

There are many more situations, but those are the most common ones. We will explain how you can disable the automatic download of drivers in Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Disable Automatic Device Driver Download

1. Open File Explorer and go to This PC.

2. Then click on System Properties

Windows 10: System Properties
Windows 10: System Properties

3. Under the Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings group, click on Change settings.

Windows 10: Workgroup Change Settings
Windows 10: Workgroup Change Settings

4. Click on the Hardware tab.

5. Under the the Device Installation Settings group, click on Device Installation Settings

Windows 10: Device Installation Settings
Windows 10: Device Installation Settings

6. Now click on No, Let me choose what to do, then select Never Install Drivers from Windows Update.

7. Click on Save Settings, a system reboot is then necessary for the changes to take effect.

Windows 10: Driver Software
Windows 10: Driver Software

To enable the automatic download again, just repeat steps 1 trough 5 and then choose Yes, do this automatically

8 Comments

  • David XXX September 22, 2016

    YEAH… apparently it’s not work!
    I have a GT720 whit latest driver installed from manually .exe download fron nvidia site……. i have make a CLEAN installation (the newest setup first uninstall old…….. restart pc and automatically re-install the newest) but on Windows Update i see a suggestion to start the installtion of WDDM driver.

    How i can skip this installation………..

  • Jathen Brown July 25, 2016

    I’m having the same system_thread_exception_not_handled (ETD.sys) blue screen.
    I can’t seem to get around it to try your suggestions above with file manager. Any work arounds? I’m using Windows 10 on an acer aspire v5-571

  • fiju January 20, 2016

    aaaaaamd 2 years passed and they really looked into it

  • Joakim October 22, 2015

    Thank you for this! This was useful when I had to download and install another version of Dolby audio device driver. What I wonder is whether I can enable automatic drivers update after doing this without messing the driver I just installed? Do you know the answer?

    • Yuri Pustjens October 22, 2015

      It should be fine, you could give it try you could always use these steps again

  • Robby Kitchen August 22, 2015

    Thank you so much for this. I was just starting to learn 8, (which I put off installing as long as possible), and now 10, before 8 I would have just known how to do this, I don’t know why something this simple is so hard to figure out other than M$ really messed up a good system when going to 8.

  • Erik Sørensen June 14, 2015

    It doesn’t work in Windows 10 (100130) Update keeps installing AMD WDDM driver….Intel Grahpics driver (even if I’m not using onboard video!!!) It’s stupiid….I want to decide whicjh driver to install It’s my computer, not Microsoft’s.

    • Yuri Pustjens June 14, 2015

      Hey Erik, Thanks for the report, we will look into the article right away and check it. In the meantime we can personally help you on our forums, simply click on forums in the header and ask for help 🙂 We will in the meantime look into article and update it if necessary

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