This issue, reported by Twitter user @ghost_motley, affects users who have used the “Show or hide updates” troubleshooter tool or changed the Group Policy settings to prevent Windows Update from installing drivers. However, Windows 11 and 10 seems to ignore these settings and installs the drivers anyway, which can lead to various issues such as reduced performance, compatibility errors, and even system crashes.
For example, one user on Reddit said that Windows 11 installed an older AMD driver over the newer one that he had manually downloaded, resulting in a black screen and a forced reboot. Another user on Twitter said that Windows 10 installed an NVIDIA driver that was incompatible with his laptop, causing a blue screen of death. Many other users have expressed their frustration and annoyance with this situation on various forums and social media platforms.
Neowin reached out to Microsoft for a comment on this matter, but did not receive a response at the time of writing. It is unclear why Windows 11 and 10 is behaving this way, and whether it is a bug or a deliberate decision by Microsoft.
Some users have speculated that it might be related to the recent security updates that were released to address the PrintNightmare vulnerability, but there is no official confirmation of this.
Microsoft lie again, Windows 11 now ignores the group policy editor and will install driver updates via Windows Update, even if you have this disabled pic.twitter.com/stAMrhGM2W
— Charlie (@ghost_motley) May 29, 2023
How You Can Work Around this Issue
In the meantime, users who are affected by this issue can try to uninstall the unwanted drivers from the Device Manager and then hide them again using the troubleshooter tool. Alternatively, Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix. In the meantime, users can disable Windows Update’s automatic driver installation feature.
This can be done by following these steps:
- Open the Start menu and search for “Control Panel.”
- Open Control Panel and click on “System and Security.”
- Click on “System” and then click on the “Advanced system settings” link.
- In the “Advanced” tab, click on the “Hardware” tab.
- Under “Device Installation Settings,” select the “No, let me choose what to do” option.
- Click on the “Save” button.
Last Updated on November 8, 2024 12:47 pm CET