Clever trick lets you keep old PC accessories

Windows 8 and Windows 10 download and update device drivers automatically by default. But sometimes this can cause problems and you might not want a newer driver for your hardware than the one you already have.

Such situations can be, for example:

• Newer drivers cause problems with your system.
• A new driver causes the current device to stop working.
• You want to use the original driver instead of the driver Windows gives you.
• You want to see if the old driver works better.
• You have a newer driver than the one Windows gives you.

In these cases, it is possible to force Windows to keep existing drivers.

1. Right click on the start button and select System.
2. Scroll down a bit and click on System information.
3. Click on Advanced system settings to the left.
4. Switch to the tab Hardware.
5. Click on Device installation settings.
6. Dot for No.
7. Click on Save Changes.

This setting looked different in previous versions of Windows 10 and may now not work as expected. If it does not help you, it remains to use the Registry Editor. Look for the value correctly SearchOrderConfig in the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionDriverSearching and change it from 1 to 0.
Please note that you will still need to update all drivers yourself.