How do I force windows to allow me to update a driver when it thinks it's own version from 2006 is better even though it crashes my PC?

Question

Ever since a recent update to windows my computer started to act slow and games that I used to have very good performance in were suddenly hitching and crashing.

I have narrowed the cause down to the incorrect drivers being installed for some of my motherboards components such as the AMD PCI Express components, where as before they had the correct AMD provided drivers from 2021 they have been replaced with Microsoft drivers from 2006. I previously talked to MS technical support about this several times, in the process learning that you can no longer fully opt out of Windows update for some insane reason, and that although you can opt out of the "optional" driver updates, some driver updates are forced through no matter what as they are "security updates". They refuse to tell me anything useful to remedy the problem however.

Using the driver installer from Asus who made the Motherboard, or the driver package from AMD that made the components, or any of the 3rd party driver installation tools available such as Driver Booster, Ashampoo or Snappy Driver Installer all claim to succeed in installing the correct drivers, but on reboot the Microsoft ones remain undisturbed.

Trying to update these drivers to the correct ones again manually from the Device Manager, by right clicking the device, Update Driver, Browsing to and selecting the driver package from AMD and trying to install it fails and it tells me;

"The best drivers for your device are already installed".

I think it would be obvious that drivers from 2006 are not suitable for a hardware device that was not manufactured until 2021, and considering my formerly lightening fast and powerful PC is now struggling with basic tasks the evidence backs it up. I have tested to make sure this is the cause by booting into other operating systems (Linux Mint and Ubuntu) where the PC performs as it always has, and I even plugged in my old SSD with a version of Windows 10 on it from early last year, I upgraded my OS drive to a NVMe and its just been sat gathering dust since, it had the correct drivers still installed and allowed the PC to perform as expected again.

Can someone please tell me how to stop Windows interfering and allow me to reinstall the correct drivers for my components? I've been updating things manually for over 20 years I want to keep it that way to stop things like this happening.

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

Hi, corderoy,

Sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue.

You can disable the driver update by disabling the "Device Installation Settings" in the advanced system settings.

1-Right-click on Start then click on Run

2-Type: sysdm.cpl and click on Ok

3-Click on the Hardware tab then click on the "Device Installation Settings" button

4-Select the option "No", then click on "Save changes" and Ok

5-Reboot your computer to the change takes effect

Then you can install the correct version of the driver manually by selecting the option "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer".

1-Right-click on Start then click on Device Manager

2-Right-click on the device that you want to install the correct driver and click on "Update driver"

3-Click on "Browse my computer for drivers"

4-Click on "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer"

5-Select the category of the driver that you want to install and click on "Next"

6-Then click on "Have a disk..." and select the correct version of the driver downloaded from the manufacturer's website and click on Ok

7-Select the correct driver version in the "Model" list and click on "Next" to install the driver

8-Once you finished, the correct version of the driver should be installed and the Windows Update will not change it

I hope this information helps. If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll be glad to assist you further.

Answer 2

Microsoft backdates all their drivers to 2006 for a special reason.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170208-00/?p=95395

Intel chipset updates also backdate back to 1968 (the year when Intel was founded).

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20211221-00/?p=106046

Whatever your problem is, you are not going to solve it by looking at the 2006 number.

Answer 3

I had temporarily solved it by finding someone to instruct me on forcing windows update off with Regedit and then installing the correct drivers again - Windows update didn't immediately demand to replace them again, however manually restarting my PC allowed that cancer to run again and now it has REMOVED ALL MY AUDIO DEVICES.

I cannot express how much I hate microsoft, just let me choose what I want to do with MY SODDIN COMPUTER!!!!

Answer 4

I already told you the reason why chipset drivers are backdated. Whatever your problems are, the "2006" driver is not the problem (the version number goes up but it's backdated to 2006). You didn't "temporarily" solve anything.

The default Microsoft driver is already the best driver. And there is a specific reason for backdating them to 2006.

Page 2 last comment.

https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=5248&PN=2&title=installation-of-amd-ahci-driver

This is the official AMD FAQ.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-250

This is Intel's FAQ on their chipset drivers. Again no actual need to install them.

The only reason to install chipset drivers are for specialized hardware (like servers) or old OS. The new OS already has the drivers for your motherboard.