How to Disable Automatic Driver Updates on Windows 11

By default, Windows 11 fetches all kinds of updates automatically. These include security patches and driver updates for your PC’s hardware and software components. That makes installing any hardware on a computer easy, but the driver updates can sometimes install buggy versions. If you prefer to update and install drivers manually, you can disable automatic updates on Windows 11 and continue to enjoy regular Windows Updates.

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What Will Happen If You Disable Automatic Driver Updates

You’ll need to manually search for drivers for existing and new hardware components to install on your Windows 11 PC. That means you’ll need to determine how to access the hardware’s details from Device Manager or any other third-party tool (like Speccy or CPU-Z). Besides that, you’ll need to consider the following Pros and Cons if you disable automatic driver updates on your Windows 11 PC.

Pros:

The maker of hardware component tests the working of the drivers and releases through the support page or forum of their websites.
Less headache to deal if you share your computer with family or others who tend to apply Windows Update without checking the list of things that need to be updated.
You can pick the older and more stable drivers (especially for graphics) instead of trying out the new and unstable ones.

Cons:

Many hardware and software components will run old version of drivers and they might become incompatible over time with Windows Updates.
Maintaining driver updates will become tedious chore.
Some key components of the computer may not function unless you apply driver updates to match and work with the latest Windows builds.

After weighing these things, you can proceed to pick one of the three ways to do that.

Use Settings App to Disable Automatic Driver Updates

The Settings app can prevent Windows 11 from downloading automatic driver updates so that Windows won’t install any new ones on your PC. Here’s how to do that using an account with administrator privileges.

1. Press Windows + I keyboard shortcut to open the Settings app.

2. Choose System in the left sidebar and About from the right pane.

Select System from the left sidebar and choose About from the right pane

3. Click the Advanced System Settings link.

4. From the System Properties window that pops open, head to the Hardware tab and click the Device Installation Settings button.

In System Properties window that pops open, head to the Hardware tab and click the Device Installation Settings button

5. Choose No (your device might not work as expected) from the pop-up window, and hit the Save Changes button.

Next, you can hit OK or Close icon to close the System Properties window.

Use Group Policy Editor to Disable Automatic Driver Updates

The Group Policy Editor offers another way to stop automatic driver updates. However, PCs with the Windows 11 Home edition don’t provide access to Group Policy Editor. Here are the steps for other Windows 11 Edition PCs.

1. Press the Windows + S key to open Windows Search, type gpedit.msc, and hit Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.

Open Group Policy Editor from Windows Search

2. When a User Account Control prompt appears to ask permission, click the Yes button. From the left sidebar, navigate to this folder path:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage updates offered from Windows Update

Navigate to Manage updates offered from Windows Update in Group Policy Editor

3. From the right pane, right-click on the Do not include drivers with Windows Updates and choose Edit from the contextual menu.

Right-click on Do not include drivers with Windowdsd Updates value and choose Edit in GPE

4. Choose Enabled option, hit Apply in the bottom-right corner, and press Ok to close the pop-up window.

Enable the option to not include drivers with Windows Updates in Group Policy Editor and then hit Apply.

After that, Windows Updates won’t fetch the device drivers for your computer. If you want to revert these changes, follow the process till step three, and choose Not configured.

Use Registry Editor to Disable Automatic Driver Updates

If you’re comfortable tinkering with the Registry Editor, we recommend backing up the Registry first. Then, follow these steps:

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box, type regedit, and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Open Registry Editor using regedit text in Run Dialog Box of Windows

2. When a User Account Control prompt appears to ask permission, click the Yes button. Browse to the following path in the left sidebar of the Registry Editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching

Navigate to the DriverSearching sting in Registry Editor

3. Double-click the SearchOrderConfig DWORD key and enter the value 0 in the Value data box. Click the OK button and close the Registry Editor window.

Add 0 in the Value data box of SearchOrderConfig DWORD and hit OK to apply the change.

Restart your computer to apply the changes. To revert this modification, follow the process, and in Step 3, enter the value 1 in the Value data box.

More Manual, No Automatic

While Windows 11’s automatic driver updates are a blessing, sometimes that can make things difficult. Especially, if you use a variety of old and new components or peripherals with your PC. However, that adds to your burden to manually search and add the latest/stable drivers for the respective components on your computer. For stable and smooth-running computer, such an effort would be totally worth it.