Is there a way to tell the Win10 1903 upgrade routine to leave your drivers alone?

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Extensive testing by @Rick Corbett shows that the old tricks don’t work: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate] “Exclu
[See the full post at: Is there a way to tell the Win10 1903 upgrade routine to leave your drivers alone?]

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Fred, CyGuy, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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Just wait for their first corporate clients to get the update and crash a few servers, then we’ll get the option back.  Windows Update has never been a good provider of drivers, outside of USB.

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There is one other case I know of where Windows Update is a good thing — if you can’t find a driver for your onboard NIC, get online some other way (such as with a USB Ethernet adapter), and run Windows Update. It will likely find a driver that works for your onboard NIC. That trick has saved me more than once.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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This method on W10-1903 PRO/ENT still works, but has some pretty heavy handed side effects. Once you deploy this blocking solution, you cannot update that driver at all – not manually nor automatically – until you reverse the block. It’s very hard to deploy widely across many workstations unless they have EXACTLY the same hardware, and the same revisions of that hardware. Also remember that this method has to occur AFTER you install the driver you want on your system.

Having said that, I use this solution for a set of high end AutoCAD/Revit workstations because we don’t like video drivers changing without us being able to test and verify. It also helps that this group of computers all have matching video cards.

https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/how-to-prevent-windows-from-automatically-updating-specific-drivers/

The other methods shared in Ricks other thread all appear to be broken (cough – deprecated?) in 1903.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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wavy, woody, AlexEiffel

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Two other caveats about the method I linked to above (we’ve been using it for three years):

You will see occasional errors from WU – that setting does not prevent it from trying and failing to update the driver in question. You can disregard those errors, but in a few cases we found WU trying over and over . . . and over.

In several cases that setting caused a major feature upgrade in W10 to fail. We had to unblock all, let the feature upgrade complete, install the driver we wanted, then re-instate the block.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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woody

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That Control Panel setting never worked in Windows 10 despite what you read online. Even in Windows 7, it only prevented Windows from checking Windows Update for drivers when a new device was detected (such as when a USB device is plugged in or powering up after installing a PCI card). The only setting that ever worked for me was ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate.

Thankfully, my 1903 upgrade went fairly smoothly with only a couple of minor issues and drivers weren’t one of them. Forced driver updates had previously forced me back from 1607 to Windows 8.1.

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The “ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate” registry entry was introduced in the 1607 release of Win10.

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EP wrote:

The “ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate” registry entry was introduced in the 1607 release of Win10.

That’s true but it wasn’t enforced very well. Despite enabling it in 1607, I had at least two occasions where my touchpad driver was replaced. I need to use v17 of the Synaptics drivers because v19 causes my left touchpad button to double-click when I press it just once. But Windows 10 kept installing v19. Thankfully it hasn’t happened once in 1809 or 1903. Can’t say for 1703, 1709 or 1803 as I skipped them.

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Does wushowhide effectively hide driver updates from 1903 as in earlier versions? Granted wushowhide would be less effective than a setting or group policy, because it has to be run manually, but does it work?

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I don’t think is actually a forced update of individual drivers through individual driver downloads through Windows Update, but rather driver installation from the downloaded 1903 update itself. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

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abbodi86

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That registry only prevent Drivers from being offered through WU interface
they are still offered using other tools

i think feature upgrades handles drivers as dynamic updates, whenever available and applicable they are downloaded

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columbia2011, woody, pf100

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[EP]

I just found something in 1903.

go to the following registry key in the registry editor tool:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Update

try changing the “ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate” value there to 1, restart the computer and check for updates again. note that this new reg key only exists in 1903 & greater

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by EP.

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pf100

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That’s MDM Policy path, and it’s available since 1511 or 1607

any of these registry keys would give the same outcome on 1803 or later, GPO takes precedence

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]  

"ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Update]  

"ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings]  

"ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate"=dword:00000001

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The solution is simple, (for Microsoft Windows 10 Pro at least):

Install Microsoft Windows 10 with the network cable unplugged and WiFi disabled

After installation edit the registry, go to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching]  and change the “SearchOrderConfig” to 0.

After start a CMD and run gpupdate /force and reboot just to be sure

Now plug in your Ethernet cable or enable your WiFi.

Feel free to wait many minutes, but not a single driver  should be installed automatically onto your system (the way I like it)

We actually use this method for computers of several customer sand never had a single problem.

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pf100

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I normally use Group Policy to restrict Drivers since at least Win10 1607 x64 all the Versions since and I cant recall seeing a Driver offered ever since. Even using WUMGR and WUMT as a backup, when I was testing alternatives and they never got offered Drivers.
However during Clean installs, with the GPOL set, Metered, Deferments etc with Network off, when the Network is reconnected. Win10 generally downloads Intel Display Driver, Realtek NIC Driver, Intel TXE (Thermal Framework) and this latter Driver has to be replaced with an older Driver to display a “Clean Sheet” in Device Manager.
Without the above settings set then Win10 will download about 9 Misc. Drivers if left alone on Setup OOBE with Network connected.

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pf100

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I haven’t tried this but creating file “C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WSUS\SetupConfig.ini” with content

[SetupConfig]
MigrateDrivers=All

before installing the feature update causes Windows Setup to migrate all drivers from the current installation. Dynamic updates may still override this though.

Source: Windows Setup Automation Overview | Microsoft Docs

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pf100, abbodi86, woody

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I wonder if that’s the solution.

Anybody set up to test it?

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Adding DynamicUpdate=Disable may help

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woody, pf100

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Not for casual user !!

I found a way to prohibit driver installs on pro but that also prohibits the user from updating drivers. in GPE

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Device Installation Restrictions
see “prevent the installation of devices that are not specifically described by any other policy setting.”

Also one level up is”specify the search server that Windows uses to find updates for device drivers.
”
Maybe a non functional server could be specified??

Previous dicussion on same topic

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata]
“PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork”=dword:00000001

 

This is working for me

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