Windows 10 won't install the drivers I want

[AussieBruce]

I’m having problems with a USB connection to an embedded device target. There are two options for the USB driver on the host side, Cypress and Ez-USB. The drivers installed are Ez-USB, but I need to replace them with the Cypress ones. I’ve tried updating the drivers multiple times, including removing the driver software, without success. Windows insists on reinstalling Ez-USB.

The Cypress drivers install file is on the hard drive and is certain to be OK, it’s supplied by the target board vendor and installs correctly on another host. Is there a way that I can force the OS to install the drivers I need?   

[Daixiwen]

You could check what VID/PID combination the two drivers announce they are compatible with (in the *.inf file I believe?), and what VID/PID your hardware is actually using. It's possible that only the EZ-USB driver lists your VID/PID combination as compatible.

[SiliconWizard]

Except for someone who exactly knows what drivers you are talking about, it's hard to give any help. Isn't EZ-USB a trademark of Cypress and thus the drivers from Cypress as well? What's the difference between the drivers you're mentioning?

One typical reason for what you encounter, general and not specific to Win 10 either (was the same in earlier versions) is if the driver you're trying to replace is newer than the driver you want to replace it with. I think the only way of doing that is to 1/ go to the Device manager and uninstall the corresponding device from there, 2/ manually delete the driver files (at least the .inf file, good luck finding it in the Windows directories), and finally 3/ install the other driver.

If you do 1/ but not 2/, Windows will pick the previous driver next time you plug the device in.

And, if the driver you want to replace is actually a Windows-provided driver, manually deleting it is at your own risk. It may come back at the next Windows update anyway.

Your best bet would be to find a replacement driver that is newer than the existing one.

All this, of course, is assuming that the driver you want to install indeed corresponds to the right device, refer to what Daixiwen said. So my answer is the next step after you checked that.

[IanB]

I’m having problems with a USB connection to an embedded device target. There are two options for the USB driver on the host side, Cypress and Ez-USB. The drivers installed are Ez-USB, but I need to replace them with the Cypress ones. I’ve tried updating the drivers multiple times, including removing the driver software, without success. Windows insists on reinstalling Ez-USB.

The Cypress drivers install file is on the hard drive and is certain to be OK, it’s supplied by the target board vendor and installs correctly on another host. Is there a way that I can force the OS to install the drivers I need?

I think there are ways to stop the automatic install behavior of Windows. I remember looking into this before. I think either you can disable driver updates altogether in your Windows update options, or you can specifically disable the update of a specific driver. You may have more options with Windows Professional compared to Windows Home.

Try doing some Google/Bing searching on topics like how to stop Windows updating a device driver...?

[gmb42]

FWIW, when messing about with Windows drivers and .inf files I've found the Driver Store Explorer tool really handy.

[rdl]

Yes, you can stop Windows from messing with device drivers. I always change this because Windows can barely update itself correctly, I see no reason to let it screw up anything else. It's easy to do this on Windows 7 but only slightly less easy on 10/11. Just do an internet or youtube search for: windows disable device driver updates

A couple of short videos by someone called Britec09 that explain how to do this for all versions of Windows should be at the top of the youtube results.

I think there are ways to stop the automatic install behavior of Windows. I remember looking into this before. I think either you can disable driver updates altogether in your Windows update options, or you can specifically disable the update of a specific driver. You may have more options with Windows Professional compared to Windows Home.

Try doing some Google/Bing searching on topics like how to stop Windows updating a device driver...?