- Jan 1, 2011
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One of the more frustrating things about Windows 10 is the updating system. In Windows 7 and 8, you had a lot of control over the update system. You could set it all to work automatically, to automatically check and download but not install, to automatically check but not download, or to just not check at all unless you tell it to. You could also elect to hide any updates you didn't want, allowing the rest to install. In Windows 10, Windows will check for updates no matter what. There's a "defer upgrade" option that seems to "delay" updates, but it doesn't stop checking and it just bluntly stops all update installations. The frustrating part about this is drivers -- PC enthusiasts enjoy having control over the drivers they have installed, especially graphics drivers. It allows us to avoid buggy drivers, install beta drivers if we want, etc. But Windows 10 doesn't care, its automatic update system will overwrite whatever drivers you have installed. I thought it wouldn't do this if I had the latest AMD drivers from their website already installed, but it did. And the frustrating part was that the AMD driver from Windows Update seemed to remove the Catalyst Control Center! I got a lot of use out of the CCC, enabling custom AA settings in games, enabling VSR, overclocking, etc. Setting the computer to never install driver updates through "System" in the Control Panel did nothing to help. Every time I removed the Windows Update-installed drivers and reinstalled the driver package from AMD's website, Windows would think that my graphics card driver needed an update and overwrote it.
Turns out Microsoft has a separate downloadable tool that re-enables hiding updates in Windows 10. You can get it here. The tool checks what updates are available to your PC, and allows you to hide them from being installed. I uninstalled the Windows Update AMD drivers, reinstalled the official AMD driver package, and then ran this tool before Windows Update had a chance to check for updates. Sure enough, the tool detected an AMD driver update, and I selected to hide it. I went into Windows Update and made it check for updates, and the AMD driver did not show up. Success! Why Microsoft saw fit to take away the option to hide updates in Windows Update itself when the system in Windows 7 and 8 worked just fine, I have no idea. But this definitely works. This has probably been mentioned in the Operating Systems section, but I don't think it's been mentioned in VC&G, so hopefully this is helpful.
tl;dr: Microsoft released a tool for hiding updates in Windows 10. You can use it to hide graphics driver updates and prevent Windows Update from overwriting whatever drivers you have already installed.
Turns out Microsoft has a separate downloadable tool that re-enables hiding updates in Windows 10. You can get it here. The tool checks what updates are available to your PC, and allows you to hide them from being installed. I uninstalled the Windows Update AMD drivers, reinstalled the official AMD driver package, and then ran this tool before Windows Update had a chance to check for updates. Sure enough, the tool detected an AMD driver update, and I selected to hide it. I went into Windows Update and made it check for updates, and the AMD driver did not show up. Success! Why Microsoft saw fit to take away the option to hide updates in Windows Update itself when the system in Windows 7 and 8 worked just fine, I have no idea. But this definitely works. This has probably been mentioned in the Operating Systems section, but I don't think it's been mentioned in VC&G, so hopefully this is helpful.
tl;dr: Microsoft released a tool for hiding updates in Windows 10. You can use it to hide graphics driver updates and prevent Windows Update from overwriting whatever drivers you have already installed.