I have an older laptop (Asus B53J) with "fixed" switchable graphics (i.e. only one can be active at a time. And I installed windows 10 on it which turned out to be a mistake.
The reason being that Windows 10 is completely overzealous in installing driver updates. Even when I install the correct drivers offline, the second I enable wifi it downloads newer (improperly working) drivers and installs them. No matter what I do.
I tried disabling automatic device drive installation through regular settings to no avail. The drivers got installed anyway (after removing them through device manager with the "uninstall this driver's software" option enabled).
Edit: This article actually claims that the option does not work so that's a feature I guess?
There’s still a “Do you want Windows to download driver software” setting buried in Windows that claims it will stop Windows Update from installing drivers, but it doesn’t actually work. Microsoft didn’t bother removing it, though, which just confuses everyone.
Thankfully I have a Pro version, so I tried to disable the installation through group policies. Again I reboot, uninstall the old driver, reboot, install the correct driver and connect to the internet. It immediately starts installing the wrong driver even though it denied installation of USB stick drivers (as I also disabled installation of all other drivers and devices through group policies).
Another thing I tried is using this special tool from Microsoft to disable installed updates, but the driver update doesn't show up there.
Oh and I have also tried to disable windows update through group policies. That works but doesn't help. And in case you are wondering I have updated to latest Windows version first to make sure I'm not experiencing a bug that has already been fixed.
I have no idea what else I can do. Windows keeps installing a new driver by AMD that thinks my GPU supports "dynamic" switching (with both GPUs running simultaneously), but that's not the case and it prevents me from using the HDMI port to connect a second display (the output is just blank).
I don't even need the switching, I would be entirely happy with just using the dedicated GPU, but I can't disable the integrated one in BIOS. Or any other way it seems.
As a last resort I may try two other things:
- Revert to older Windows version that does not force drivers on the user so badly
- Try installing some linux distribution there and hope that I get the dedicated GPU working properly
Or are there any other options? Something I have not tried? Unfortunately I can't afford to run this PC offline just so that it doesn't reinstall its drivers.
right click > properties > compatibility > select whatever Windows version the drivers are designed for). I found out that that can solve issues in some cases as then Windows realize that the drivers are better than whatever they are trying to reinstall.