How To Prevent Unwanted Driver Installation In Windows 10

Stop Windows 10 from Installing a Driver

Before you can stop Windows from installing a driver, you first need to uninstall the existing driver if Windows 10 has already updated or installed it. To do that boot your system into Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key while selecting the “Restart” option from the power user menu (Win + X).

Once you are in the Safe Mode, open the Power User menu again and select the option “Device Manager.”

The above action will open the Device Manager. Right-click on the driver you want to uninstall and then select the option “Uninstall.”

Once you are done, restart your system, search for “System” in the Start menu and open it.

Here, click on the link “Advanced System Settings” appearing on the left panel.

In the Advanced System Settings window, navigate to the “Hardware” tab, and then click on the “Device Installation Settings” button.

Select the “No” radio button and then click on the “OK” button to save the changes.

Now comes the part where you stop Windows from downloading the driver update. To start, head over to the official site and download the update troubleshooter. Once downloaded, execute the downloaded application.

On the home screen, just click on the “Next” button to continue. This will trigger the scan to check for any problems and all the available updates. Once the scan has been completed, select the option “Hide Updates.”

This action will list all the available Windows updates including the driver updates. From the list find the driver you want to block, select the checkbox and then click on the “Next” button. As you can see, I’ve selected the option to hide the Intel Watchdog Timer driver update.

As soon as you click on the button, Windows will hide the update and will let you know the same. Do remember that this is only temporary. Windows 10 will eventually download the driver update in a few days or weeks.

If you ever want to unhide the update, open the application again and select the option “Show Hidden Updates.”

In the next screen Windows will list all the hidden updates. Simply select the update you want to unhide and then click on the “Next” button.

You’ve successfully unhidden the update so that Windows can automatically download it if need be.

Do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using the above method to temporarily stop Windows 10 from downloading drivers updates automatically.