A driver CD. These days, drivers are pushed out via Windows Update. And that can be a BAD thing?

I got a bit annoyed today.

The reason being how Windows 10 automatically found out that a new device driver was available for my Nvidia graphics card, through Windows Update.

Then Windows simply went ahead and installed it for me while I was away from the screen for a couple of hours. In previous Windows versions (Windows 7/XP), you had the option to disable “optional updates” as you pleased.

This is no longer the case in Windows 10 (and 8.1).

And exactly this behaviour can be bad for certain situations, where it is inconvenient to be forced to reboot the computer or revert to an older driver due to issues with the latest version that got installed automatically.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great to get the latest drivers automatically installed when setting up the computer and installing the operating system for the first time.

But I want to be the one to decide when to update my graphics card drivers and certain other things!

The particular reason why I prefer to not update the graphics card driver, is that I have bad experiences with it. Unless I absolutely have some compelling reason to take the risk, I won’t update it, because the manufacturer sometimes introduces new bugs (aka features) in the latest drivers, especially for older graphics card models.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to disable only one type of device driver update in Windows 10 (and Windows 8.1).

Update July 27, 2015:

In response to people having all kinds of bad experiences with Nvidia drivers being pushed out by force, Microsoft has released a tool* that can be used to block updates.

Click here to go to Microsoft’s KB page to download the “Show or hide updates troubleshooter package” and read more about how to use it

* The tool is meant for Windows 10 build 10240 (the final build number).

System Restore is turned off by default in Windows 10. If you turn it on, you can roll back Windows if a driver refuses to play nice. Then, you can block the troublemaking driver using the “Show or hide updates” tool!

This won’t block future driver updates though. This method may work for Windows 10 Home edition as well.

I still think that Microsoft needs to make a setting for opting out of all driver updates.