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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?

enharmonic
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Daniel
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3 Answers3

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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;

  1. Open File explorer (Win+E)
  2. Right click "This PC" and select properties
  3. Click "Advanced system settings" and select "Hardware" tab
  4. Click "Device Installation Settings"
  5. Select "No, let me choose what to do" and check "Never install driver software from Windows Update"
  6. 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.

Daniel
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The best solution for Windows 10 updates is using a 3rd party software to install and hide updates.

It installs nothing, it is portable, it allows you to hide any update including drivers. This Software makes no changes to the normal windows update or your system (except for the updates you allow it to install) but does use the Windows update service, once you have hidden your updates and installed others you want, be sure to go into Windows Services and stop the Windows update service and then set it to disabled, or it will install the updates you hid using the other software.

So keep the windows update service disabled, the minitool will start it automatically when you run it, then disable it again when done using the minitool.

Originally found it here

Can be downloaded here

Double arrow = check for updates

Down Arrow = download Only

Down Arrow with underscore = Download and Install selected updates.

+H = Hide Selected Updates.

Trash Can = Uninstall updates from the Installed Updates menu.

Also if you do not want any automatic updates set the automatic Updates drop down to "Disabled"

enter image description here

0xC0000022L
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Moab
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1

The accepted answer is outdated since it does not apply to Windows 10.

The proper answer for any operating system starting with Windows 7 lies in configuring the group policy:

Local Group Policy Editor

Press <Win+R>, then type gpedit.msc and press <Enter>. Once you get the Local Group Policy Editor like in the screenshot above, navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation and in the right pane double-click on the Specify search order for device driver installation option which will present you with the following dialog:

Specify search order for device driver installation

Set the option to Enabled, and select Do not search Windows Update from the dropdown as shown above, then click on the Apply button.

Once you do this, Windows won't install any drivers from Windows Update.

If you are unable to run gpedit.msc because you don't have a Pro version of Windows, then create the associated registry key manually using regedit.exe or by running the following command from the command prompt as Administrator:

REG ADD "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DriverSearching" /v "SearchOrderConfig" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Finally, please note that this might not prevent automatic installation of companion applications (things like Alienware Control Center, Intel's CPU/GPU DRM services, HP printer and scanner applications, etc).

Those companion apps are categorized as software "devices" (each of them has a unique ID), and they are automatically installed from Windows Store when you install the drivers, unless you take steps to block their installation beforehand.

Blocking of those can be done through the group policy as well (Device Installation Restrictions), so if you are interested in that please consult the relevant Microsoft group policy documentation.

Igor Levicki
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