Why must Windows update display drivers in the background?

[HwAoRrDk]

FFS, I just lost nearly an hour's worth of CAD work because Windows, in it's infinite wisdom, decided it needed to update my computer's display drivers in the background. (Yes, more fool me for not saving more frequently.)

The CAD program did not like that, and promptly crashed when the display was re-initialised. Firefox's PDF viewer also did not like it either, and the page being displayed just became a black rectangle.

Is there any way to tell Windows 10 to not auto-update display drivers? Or at least tell it not to do it whilst I'm in the middle of working.

[Psi]

Are you sure it was a windows update?

Sometimes if you have a faulty video card, or the video card has bad ram, the screen will go black and then the windows graphic system restarts itself.

[DavidAlfa]

You should have already learned to save your work frequently... this applies for everything.
Open the settings and set autosave to the lowest interval.
Don't be so naive, a driver, a power failure, a program crash... It's just too easy to lose hours of work.
We all have been there .

[HwAoRrDk]

Are you sure it was a windows update?

Yes, absolutely. This isn't the first time that it's happened. I can see it logged in the Windows System event log from WindowsUpdateClient, right at the same time:

Installation Started: Windows has started installing the following update: NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3623
Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3623

And then about 20 seconds later in the Application event log an NVidia OpenGL Driver error:

The GPU has been disconnected and this application may become unresponsive.
Error code: 10
 (pid=11464 tid=7380 freecad.exe 64bit)

Luckily it turns out I didn't actually lose more than a few minutes work because FreeCAD has an auto-recovery feature that happened to save the state of the file a few minutes before the crash. I didn't know it had that. By default it's set to save auto-recovery every 15 minutes. I might bump that up a bit.

[PA0PBZ]

Did this happen during active hours?

-Press Windows Key + X
-Go to Settings
-Click on Update and Security
-Click Change Active Hours and set your preferred time.

[HwAoRrDk]

Did this happen during active hours?

Yes.

The start time of my active hours setting is supposed to be about 1 hour before this took place.

[tszaboo]

It's possible to turn off individual updates. I had an issue where an update to some excel hooks broke Altium, so I chatted with microsoft support and they gave me a guide how to turn it off. And the auto update somehow can be set-up to be turned off on he pro (or whatever it's called) versions with group policies.

[HwAoRrDk]

I don't know whether such an approach would be practical here, as obviously every new nVidia driver update is a fresh, new update, not just a single existing one that I want to stop. And I'm not really sure whether it would be wise to disable driver updates completely, for security reasons.

I am using Windows 10 Pro, so whatever Group Policy things are available are possible for me.

[50ShadesOfDirt]

Depending on your version of windows, there should be a setting buried in the "updates" config screens where you can disable "device driver" automatic updating. Security updates & such should still come down automatically (and possibly want you to reboot the system during work, but that's another story).

A quick google search should give you the gory details of changing this setting, or you can hunt around in there and find it.

You'll just need to remember to scan for and do these yourself, as the setting now affects all device driver updates on your system.

Hope this helps ...

[MrMobodies]

There is this one as well:

Device installation settings.
Do you want to automatically download manufacturers' apps and customs icons that are available for your devices?
No (your device might not work as expected)

I was very upset one day to find this appearing in the "APPS" menu.

I found the whole thing insulting and degrading in itself (SMART, so I am suppose to be stupid, do this and that easily with the language used, etc)

Fortunately no printers on there knowing what HP are like with the remote firmware updates and the 3rd party ink cartridge block and I did remember to disable automatic updates on the printer but I still don't trust it. When they started to bloat the normal driver package in the installation medium over 10 years ago with things like "customer improvement program" 600+ megabytes in size which took ages to install and which is why I then chose from there on after to manually install the small sized basic print drivers from the website (for administrators if I remembered correctly) than the whole package.

I was doing some stuff for someone and they had an old HP laserjet printer whereas mine are behind a firewall on a different network range so I believe that is how it got installed which is when I found out forgot about setting the device installation settings set to no.

[SiliconWizard]

Which version of Windows do you have? I've lost track of all the shenanigans MS pulled off - I just know that some versions of Windows 10 allow disabling automatic updates altogether, but I don't remember if it's starting with the Pro version or Enterprise version.

[wraper]

I'm not convinced this has anything to do with drivers themselves. Looks more like about an app that comes with some drivers. Like Nvidia Control Panel or HP smart. In the past there was MS utility for win 10 which you could download from their website. It allowed disabling driver updates for particular device. But it no longer works for a few years already.

There is this one as well:

Device installation settings.
Do you want to automatically download manufacturers' apps and customs icons that are available for your devices?
No (your device might not work as expected)

[MrMobodies]

Siliconwizard. If that is me, the one in the picture is Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 and I spent two years customizing it such as removing crap and disabling or removing unwanted services that do nothing useful, preventing the new Netframework control update panel (UpdateOrchestrator) from shutting it down automatically it into a disc image for when I need another copy.

If I was given a normal copy I'd bin after what I have experienced in 2019.

[MrMobodies]

I'm not convinced this has anything to do with drivers themselves. Looks more like about an app that comes with some drivers. Like Nvidia Control Panel or HP smart. In the past there was MS utility for win 10 which you could download from their website. It allowed disabling driver updates for particular device. But it no longer works for a few years already.

There is no way I can tolerate that appaling behaviour I'd go absolutely mad if I found it doing it again and spend whatever time stripping it to bits until I find out what component is set to do it, in a testing kind of approaching just like the Windows 10 pro in 2019 that I eventually abandoned after a year.

It has been about 3 months maybe and it has not happened again since I set turned that option off.

I have stopped the Windows update from doing what they like automatically behind my back by setting permissions into in C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator "SYSTEM" account deny ALL,  note down and remove tasks, in registry find the associated tasks, remove, and this time deny TRUSTEDINSTALLER not system.

Then remove service rempl and waasmedic and of course I took the drive out to do it.

For the UpdateOrchestrator in registry/services set ID from 32 to 16 then you can start and stop and disable the service.

I did not install any HP driver at the time or package like that.
I had these drivers installed for a couple of years now and I cloned it a couple of times for other computers in my house and they don't have it on. I think it found a printer at somone's house who did. Mine HP printers are  behind a firewall so maybe it didn't pick it in that way.

The only package installer I used installed in a Ptouch editor thing for a Brother labeller.

With scanning I just use network scan folder which doesn't depend on package.

[Halcyon]

Are you sure it was a windows update?

Sometimes if you have a faulty video card, or the video card has bad ram, the screen will go black and then the windows graphic system restarts itself.

I've had the same thing happen. Background driver updates occur and Windows will literally pull the rug out from under the current running drivers while you're working. Welcome to the modern Microsoft.

[SiliconWizard]

Siliconwizard. If that is me,

No, that was for the OP. The version *you* are using was pretty obvious from the screenshots you showed, and this one certainly avoids the mentioned issues.

So my question still holds, I don't know for sure if the Enterprise version (properly configured) is the only one that can avoid any kind of automatic update, or if you can already do this with the Pro version.

If this isn't possible with the Pro version, I fail to understand how it can be labelled "Pro" in any way. How acceptable can it be that some OS meant for pro use could interrupt what you're doing at any moment?
Even if there's a time setting for updates and the OS actually respects it - which is dubious in many cases apparently - you may need to work at unusual hours and there's no reason for the OS to be doing something behind your back that can just stop what you're doing as though someone was just pulling the plug.

I don't understand how anyone could find this acceptable.

[amyk]

Disable the update services and it'll definitely stop doing it. Renaming the file it uses to run the service will work certainly. You can do that with any edition as long as you can edit the files on the disk.

[golden_labels]

How negative opinion I hold about Microsoft, I suspect in this case this might be not them. Rather: nVidia used you as a test rat.

While PR branch carefully crafted the annoucement to not state it in a blunt manner, the message is: access to your computer is offered to Microsoft’s customers to run tests on it.

My guess is, that the test outcome was negative. But do not worry, I will wrap it back in PR paper for you: your work has been sacrificed for the greater good of the collective customer, so less lube is needed to… I mean, so the drivers can come faster and with less friction.

Perhaps the linked article will also point you to the right direction.