Amd graphics card driver. Windows update keeps reverting back

Jabiru · Jan 31, 2022

I had tons of problems with this also. On my Ryzen 3700 build, every time I installed the newest Radeon Pro or Adrenalin graphics drivers the system would either fail to use the new driver by reverting to the old driver even though the new one was installed, or it would revert to 1024x768 and I couldn't get it back to 1920x1080 because that resolution wasn't available. It would take me hours to flush all the graphics drivers and get to a state I could reload the correct drivers. On top of that, Microsoft's updater kept trying to load a graphics driver that was at least one generation older than was available from AMD. My GPU is a Radeon WX2100 and I typically load the (quarterly available) graphics driver from the AMD website at https://www.amd.com/en/support/prof.../radeon-pro-wx-x100-series/radeon-pro-wx-2100. No matter how many times I tried to reload the drivers (Einstein's definition of insanity) I'd get my system in a frustrating state. It wasn't until I noticed a little checkbox in the install process that stated "remove old driver's" that I had success.

Apparently AMD is aware of the problem of driver installs and provides the solution as part of the install process by deleting the old driver so there is only one choice. Since I've used this new option I haven't had any problems.

japoneis · Jul 14, 2022

Hi, unfortunately, didn't work for me.
So now, I did this:
To disable Windows Device Installation Settings, follow these steps:

Open System Properties by typing “sysdm.cpl” (without quotes) in the Search box on the Taskbar, then hit the Enter key.
In System Properties, select the Hardware tab, then click on Device Installation Settings.
In the Device installation settings screen, choose NO.
Click on Save Changes to exit.
Restart the system.

Now I'm installing the correct driver again.

glasskuter · Jul 14, 2022

As to not mislead anyone, I believe @japoneis thread #22 needs to be clarified for anyone who finds this thread. I do not believe checking the box in sysdm.cpl stops ALL driver updates, but only the ones that include the drivers plus their own software such as AMD Catalyst or Nvidia Control Panel. (Am I not correct here @Ghot )
The only way to stop ALL driver updates is through group policy if one has PRO, or by using the Registry hack which works for both Home and Pro.

ShamrockRig · Jul 14, 2022

glasskuter said:
As to not mislead anyone, I believe @japoneis thread #22 needs to be clarified for anyone who finds this thread. I do not believe checking the box in sysdm.cpl stops ALL driver updates, but only the ones that include the drivers plus their own software such as AMD Catalyst or Nvidia Control Panel. (Am I not correct here @Ghot )
The only way to stop ALL driver updates is through group policy if one has PRO, or by using the Registry hack which works for both Home and Pro.

Im gonna say this is also the case with win 11 education seen as its atleast on par with pro if not above based on this Differences between Windows 11 Home, Pro, SE, Enterprise, and Education - Liliputing .

glasskuter · Jul 14, 2022

Ghot said:
I wonder if it's possible to wear out the Macrium Reflect program

I'm on Pro with driver updates turned off in group policy but my sysdm.cpl was on. None of my drivers including graphics have updated. Since I don't have a Home system I can't check it there.
I've wondered the same thing about how many writes my backup drive can take before it wears out. I've got to be getting close to its limit.

Ghot · Jul 14, 2022

glasskuter said:
I'm on Pro with driver updates turned off in group policy but my sysdm.cpl was on. None of my drivers including graphics have updated. Since I don't have a Home system I can't check it there.
I've wondered the same thing about how many writes my backup drive can take before it wears out. I've got to be getting close to its limit.

No, I was joking about how many backups the program itself could make, before it wore out.
I make lots of backups.

glasskuter · Jul 14, 2022

Ghot said:
I was joking

I wasn't. I can't afford a 4 tb ssd so this old HDD has done a lot of writes in its time...all Macrium for 3 systems in the house. Quite a number of reads, too,, when I restored those backups.

Ghot · Jul 14, 2022

glasskuter said:
I wasn't. I can't afford a 4 tb ssd so this old HDD has done a lot of writes in its time...all Macrium for 3 systems in the house. Quite a number of reads, too,, when I restored those backups.

Hard drives don't have the "writes" problem like an SSD would.
Pretty much the only way to wear out a hard drive is by wearing out the read/write "heads".

Most half way decent hard drives have like 1,000,000+ MTBF (mean time between failure).
These days they're hermetically sealed so even smoking cigarettes around them, won't hurt them.

Now dropping a hard drive on the floor... will definitely kill a hard drive... fast.

The easiest way to know if the hard drive you're buying is "hardy", is look at the warranty.
5+ year warranty are pretty tough hard drives. And get a CMR hard drive (see list below).

List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD)

List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD) If you know an SMR type of drive, share it with others in a table below! PMR, also known as conventional magnetic recording (CMR), works by aligning the poles of the magnetic elements, which represent bits of data, perpendicularly to

nascompares.com

tl;dr

For internal hard drives, you can't go wrong with Western Digital Black hard drives.
Look for the largest cache as well (for speed purposes).

Just choose a size...

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-black-desktop-sata-hdd#WD5003AZEX

glasskuter · Jul 17, 2022

@Ghot I read a comment on Brink's tutorial where the poster said he had applied Brink's regedit fix, and said after applying the fix that WU did check for driver updates but showed them as optional updates rather than applying them. Did you notice that behavior at all in your testing? However, that poster did not say if he was using Home or Pro.

Kudos for testing this. We all need to finally have a firm solution that works for everybody.

.

glasskuter · Jul 17, 2022

@Ghot I am assuming the regedit fix mentioned in 10 forum is the same as is in @Brink tutorial here, Enable or Disable Include Drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 11 Tutorial

glasskuter · Jul 17, 2022

Maybe @Brink can give us a firm clarification. In your test Home machine who knows how the other 2 tweaks you have done affects this one and Brink's regedit fix.

I don't have a Home system to test with but I may just make a VM on my secondary computer for this purpose if I have time. Something like this irks me to no end and I end up spending time I don't have chasing it down.

Can you tell me what the other 2 tweaks you made are and I'll try to test with them as well.

Ghot · Jul 17, 2022

Ok... I'm back on the 7/13 image.
WAU Manager is gone
I'm on the 442.74 vid card driver.

Haven't been online 2-3 minutes and I already see this...

So.... I will restore again, with no internet, then remove WAU Manager again, but this time, I will do the new tweak, before I reconnect the internet.

Brb, about 5 minutes.

Ghot · Jul 17, 2022

@Brink
@glasskuter

Ok, the new tweak doesn't work., any better than the older tweak.
The old tweak, alone (tutorial), doesn't stop the vid card driver update, either.

The ONLY way I could stop it was to run WAU Manager as show below, and click check for updates.
[Had to run this BEFORE I ran the actual Windows Update]
It brought up two driver updates only. One for my DELL monitor (which seems to really be optional), and the one for the newer vid card driver.
I UNchecked the newer vid card driver, and chose: Hide Unchecked.
Then I reran Windows Update the proper way... and the newer vid card driver did NOT come up.

All other possible options allowed the vid card driver to come up... AND start installing immediately.

Final

/edit
I deleted all other posts about this except #33 and 34

/edit2
I only have this issue on Win 10 Home. I can only assume that's because on Win 11 Home, I must have already "hidden" the driver update with WAU Manager.

/edit3

At this site, with the options shown in the pic, the oldest driver available is the 456.71 driver.
This is the driver WU tries to force on me... NOT the newest driver, but the driver on the list that closest to the driver I'm running (442.74). After 456.71 is installed... WU stops trying to force newer drivers one me.

It's almost like... MS says: if it ain't on this list... you can't use it.

glasskuter · Jul 17, 2022

@Ghot See if I've got all this correct.
No fixes work. In a nutshell, anyone with Windows Home is screwed. They're going to get driver updates whether they like it or not since they do not know and no longer have control over the time when windows is checking for updates. Nor do they know when a new device driver hits the windows update servers so they can step in and stop the update from applying. They can't disable the windows update service because a restart will re-enable it. Windows Update can only be disabled for 21 days and is automatically re-enabled so they can't use WAU Manager as a permanent solution for managing updates. Is that about right?

Dayum. That makes paying extra for Pro worth the money.

Ghot · Jul 17, 2022

glasskuter said:
@Ghot See if I've got all this correct.
No fixes work. In a nutshell, anyone with Windows Home is screwed. They're going to get driver updates whether they like it or not since they do not know and no longer have control over the time when windows is checking for updates. Nor do they know when a new device driver hits the windows update servers so they can step in and stop the update from applying. They can't disable the windows update service because a restart will re-enable it. Windows Update can only be disabled for 21 days and is automatically re-enabled so they can't use WAU Manager as a permanent solution for managing updates. Is that about right?

Dayum. That makes paying extra for Pro worth the money.

Well, yes and no.
You see the list of available vid card "standard" drivers for MY vid card.

It seems that MS just wants me to use a driver ON that list.
After 456.71 is installed... WU stops trying to force vid card drivers on me.
And WU allows all other drivers (non vid card) to be optional.

That's the only thing I can figure. MS doesn't want to have to worry about any conflicts with vid card drivers, that are too old to be on that list. And any other driver type that appears in WU, is always optional.

I'm guessing that their reasoning is that they want to be able to alter Windows elements that might have an effect on the vid card driver, or be affected BY the vid card driver. So they've decided to limit, how old of a driver you can use.
Like maybe something in Teams or Widgets or something similar. Their "new" fangled things, that I don't use anyway.

The 442.74 driver that I want to use, IS a WHQL driver, but it is older, and not available on that list.
I like it because it's rock hard stable. Nothing bothers the 442.74 driver.

I feel fairly certain that if people use one of the drivers on that list, or newer... then WU will relax about trying to "force" the update.

MS: "Backwards compatibility? We don't need no steenking backwards compatibility".

Dru2 · Jul 17, 2022

This fix definitely works in preventing Windows Update from downloading and installing GPU driver updates. I'm running Windows 11 Pro so I use option one of this tutorial - Enable or Disable Include Drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 11 Tutorial

Anyway, to know for sure if drivers are installing is to check Update History, and Driver Updates. The last GPU driver update I got from Windows Update was in Feb before I disabled driver update. There have certainly been WHQL driver updates since then that WU could have done. So yeah, Brink's Tutorial works

Ghot · Jul 17, 2022

Short version...

If MS wants to, they can blow right through that Disable driver update registry patch (tutorial), anytime they want to.

Ghot · Jul 17, 2022

@Dru2

Sort of. I thought that myself, but that only works until you restore from an older image.
Both these screenshots just taken a few minutes ago.

This is what stopped the 456.71 update.

Update History is stored on MS servers.
So if I restore to before the vid card driver update... MS doesn't update the server.

So, in some cases, Update History is useful, but in others, it isn't.

It took me a total of five Macrium restores, to figure this out.

glasskuter · Jul 17, 2022

@Dru2 Yes for sure Pro users can all stop driver updates thru group policy. It's the Home users that seem to have a problem doing so.

And we were under the impression the reg fix would do the same thing for Home or Pro for all drivers, and it seems it does make most drivers as optional. However, @Ghot testing seems to prove otherwise when one chooses to use an older graphics driver than is on WU approved list. Unless one is using one of the drivers on this approved list, WU automatically updates the driver rather than showing it as optional. Once the user uses an approved driver, all other drivers on the list that are newer will become optional.

I guess if one's driver falls off the bottom of that list, the user is SOL once again and another driver is forced on him.

Dru2 · Jul 17, 2022

Ghot said:
@Dru2

Sort of. I thought that myself, but that only works until you restore from an older image.
Both these screenshots just taken a few minutes ago.

So, in some cases, Update History is useful, but in others, it isn't.

Well yeah, if you do all sorts of finagling and images restores, who knows.

Anyway, assuming you don't do image restores and whatever, the tutorial definitely works as my image shows.

Amd graphics card driver. Windows update keeps reverting back

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