Windows – How to remove driver and prevent Windows 10 from updating driver

Looks like there was no easy way. In Windows 10 preview they force automatic updates on you, and since build 10049 there's no way to restore the "old" Windows Update applet in Control Panel. But I managed to do with with a set of PowerShell tools called Windows Update PowerShell Module.

After you install the PowerShell tools, list all the available updates (after uninstalling the offending update first):

PS > Get-WUList

ComputerName Status KB          Size Title
------------ ------ --          ---- -----
LAMBDACORE   D-----            65 MB Synaptics driver update for Synaptics SMBus TouchPad
LAMBDACORE   D----- KB2956185  68 MB Update for Microsoft OneDrive for Business (KB2956185) 64-Bit Edition
LAMBDACORE   D----- KB2965255  11 MB Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB2965255) 64-Bit Edition
...

I was interested in disabling the Synaptics one, to do that, use the following command:

PS > Hide-WUUpdate -Title "Synaptics driver*"

ComputerName Status KB          Size Title
------------ ------ --          ---- -----
LAMBDACORE   D--H--            65 MB Synaptics driver update for Synaptics SMBus TouchPad

The letter H now signifies this update is hidden.

That's it!

I wrote a detailed post on how to disable a particular update in Windows 10 build 10049, you can read it here: http://hmemcpy.com/2015/04/preventing-a-certain-windows-update-from-installing-on-windows-10/

It is likely that I uninstalled the MS database drivers when I uninstalled the older version of Office (and not related to the recent Windows update) and the new one must not come with the drivers as standard.

The drivers I needed were within the 'Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable' that is currently available at the following address:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13255