Windows 10 Drivers – How to Stop Automatic Driver Software Installation

driverswindows 10

I've upgraded my PC from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10 Pro; overall it seems to be working fine, with small bugs here and there. One thing that I find really annoying is that Windows seems to think it is OK to install drivers and vendor-specific control panels for me.

I've always installed drivers manually to get around having all the bloatware (i.e., Realtek's audio management panels and other vendor-specific tweaking tools).

How do I stop Windows from automatically installing bloat on my custom PC, so that I can use the drivers I've exported from packages and binaries to get around bloats?

If I uninstall everything Windows automatically installed, it seems as if a reboot persists them and installs again.

Preferably I'd like to perform a clean install and have Windows skip installing any drivers automatically. Is this possible?

Best Answer

After 2 hours of angry web searching, I posted this question. And of course the next search I did yielded the answer I was looking for;

Note: Make sure your windows upgrade has been activated before you perform a clean installation!

Performing a clean installation with the Windows 10 ISO with the network cable disconnected seems to be the way to go. After first boot one have to disable this feature by;

Open File explorer (Win+E)
Right click "This PC" and select properties
Click "Advanced system settings" and select "Hardware" tab
Click "Device Installation Settings"
Select "No, let me choose what to do" and check "Never install driver software from Windows Update"
Reconnect your network cable

Windows will be activated sometime after you connect the network cable again.

Hope this helps others too, and save hours of anger in search for a solution.

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Have a look at this article :
Steps for Configuring a Shared Network Folder to Hold Signed Device Driver Packages.

One paragraph there limits enormously the usability of a network share as a repository for drivers, to the point of being almost useless :

A driver package hosted in a shared network folder must be properly signed with a certificate that is installed on the client computer, because it must still be staged in the driver store as part of the installation.

If the network share is the reason for this behavior, you will need to trick Windows into treating it as a local drive.

One trick that might work is to put the drivers in a VHD on the network share, then mount it as a local drive.
This can be done from the command-line by using Diskpart as follows :

diskpart
sel vdisk file="\NetworkLocation\ShareName\drivers.vhd"
attach vdisk

Another is to use a TrueCrypt folder, since I believe that a mounted TrueCrypt volume is treated as a local drive. Although this is a third-party software that you might prefer to avoid, you could use Portable TrueCrypt installed onto the same network share.

Best Answer

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