Disable Driver Installation from Windows Update in Windows 8

Windows 8 has many new features apart from the Metro user interface. But most of the features are same as in Windows 7, only with new default settings. For example, in Windows 7 it does not automatically install drivers from Windows Update service, while in Windows 8 it does the opposite. This is a painful experience for some of us. By the time you put in the driver CD that comes with motherboard after installing Windows 8, it is already downloading hundreds of megabytes of drivers from Microsoft. If you do not want this to happen, then you can disable Windows 8 from automatically installing device drivers using Windows Update. Here is how :

Note: You must have administrator privileges for the following steps.

  1. Press the key combination Windows Logo Key + Pause on your keyboard. This would open the System information window.
  2. In this window, click on the Advanced system settings link on the left side as shown.

    Disable Driver Installation from Windows Update

  3. In the System Properties window that opens, select the Hardware tab. Then click on the Device Installation Settings button.

    Disable Driver Installation from Windows Update

  4. In the Device Installation Settings window, select No let me choose what to do and then Never install driver software from Windows Update as shown in the following picture.

    Disable Driver Installation from Windows Update

  5. Finally click on the Save Changes button to save the settings. From now on, Windows 8 will not try to download and update your device drivers using the Windows Update.

You should disable automatic driver installation from Windows Update only if you have ready-to-install drivers for your devices that Windows does not recognize during the installation. If you do not have them, then you have no choice but to try the Windows Update and see if it can download and install some drivers for your devices.