Stop Windows Reinstalling a Driver After You Roll It Back (11/10)

You roll back the driver, the hardware works again, and a few hours later Windows quietly puts the broken one back. If you have been going round this loop all evening, please run these two steps in this order and it stops:

Uninstall the driver first. Then hide the update — straight away, before Windows checks again. Hiding is done with Microsoft's Show or hide updates troubleshooter, a small file called wushowhide.diagcab.

And here is the part that will make the last hour make sense. The reason you could not find that option anywhere in Settings is that it is not in Settings. It has never been in Windows at all. Microsoft publishes it as a separate download, under an old support article, and has never added it to the Settings app.

So you were not missing a checkbox. You were looking for a room that isn't in the building. Every guide that says "just stop Windows from reinstalling it" skips the fact that the tool for doing so has to be fetched from somewhere else first.

Nothing on your machine is broken, and nothing you did caused this. Windows Update is doing exactly what it was designed to do — it just has no way of knowing you removed that driver on purpose.

The Touchpad That Kept Un-Fixing Itself

A customer brought Jake a laptop whose two-finger scrolling had stopped working after an update. She had already found the fix herself — she had rolled the driver back in Device Manager, scrolling returned, and she had been quietly pleased about it.

Then it broke again. So she rolled it back again. By the time she gave up and brought it in, she had done it four times over two weeks and had started to wonder whether the laptop was failing, or whether she was doing the rollback wrong.

She was not doing it wrong. She had diagnosed her own problem correctly and applied the correct fix, four times, and every single time Windows Update looked at the machine afterwards, saw a driver older than the one it had on file, and helpfully replaced it.

Jake did not spot it immediately either. He rolled it back a fifth time and watched it return overnight.

When he described it to Ethan, Ethan's first response was to take the blame off both of them: "There's nothing to work out here. Windows Update isn't checking whether somebody made a decision. It's comparing two lists and filling the gap. You can do the right thing as many times as you like — until the gap is hidden rather than just empty, it gets filled again."

Then the part that actually stung, for Jake at least: the tool that hides it is not in Windows. He had spent an hour looking through Settings for a switch that has never existed there.

Ten minutes after downloading a file Microsoft published years ago and never mentioned again, the touchpad stayed fixed. The customer had been right the whole time, about all of it, and the only thing missing was a download nobody tells you about.

Why It Comes Back, and Why That Is Not Your Fault

Windows Update does not distinguish between a driver you never had and a driver you deliberately removed. It has one job: compare what is installed against what is available for your hardware, and close the difference. From its point of view, a rolled-back driver and a missing driver look identical.

This is the same behavior that makes Windows Update reliable for security patches, and it would be a worse product without it. It is simply applied to a category where "newer" and "better" are not the same thing.

Which leads to the reason your hardware broke in the first place, and it is worth knowing because it is reassuring. Windows Update usually carries a generic driver from the chipset manufacturer — Intel, Realtek, Synaptics, AMD. Your laptop maker took that same driver and customized it for your exact model, adding the bits that make your particular touchpad or audio hardware behave properly. The generic version is genuinely newer. On your machine it is genuinely worse.

So when a driver update breaks something, the usual story is not corruption or damage or anything you triggered. It is a newer, more generic driver replacing an older, more specific one. Your hardware is fine. The mismatch is the whole problem, and it is entirely fixable.

The same "compare and fill the gap" logic is why an uninstalled Windows update reappears too, which we cover in our guide to uninstalling a Windows update. Same mechanism, same surprise, slightly different fix.

The Order That Works

Everything here hinges on sequence rather than difficulty. The troubleshooter can only hide an update that Windows is currently offering. While the bad driver is still installed there is nothing pending, so there is nothing to hide, and the tool will show you a list that does not contain the thing you came to block. That is not a malfunction — it is the reason the order below is written this way.

1. Get the tool first. Download wushowhide.diagcab and put it on your desktop. Do this before touching anything else, so there is no gap while you go looking for it.
2. Note what you have. In Device Manager, right-click the device, choose Properties, then the Driver tab. Write down the version and date. If this goes sideways you will want to know what you started with.
3. Remove the driver. Right-click the device and choose Uninstall device. If a checkbox appears offering to delete the driver software, check it — otherwise Windows keeps the files locally and reinstalls from them in seconds.
4. Run the troubleshooter straight away. Double-click wushowhide.diagcab, choose Hide updates, tick the driver in the list, and click Next. It will usually be named after the manufacturer.
5. Now install the good driver. Use the one from your laptop or component maker's support page if you have it. Windows will not overwrite it, because the update that would have is hidden.

The one thing not to do is click "Check for updates" between steps 3 and 4. That button does not merely look — it installs. Give Windows that opening and the driver is back before the troubleshooter finishes loading. If it happens, nothing is lost: just start again from step 3 and be quicker.

The Tool Microsoft Never Put in Windows

The Show or hide updates troubleshooter is a genuine Microsoft tool, published under support article KB3073930. It arrived in the Windows 10 era, when the ability to decline an individual update was removed from Settings, and it has stayed exactly where it started: a standalone download, never folded into the operating system.

It is worth being clear about that, because a lot of people conclude they are looking in the wrong place, or that their edition of Windows lacks something. Neither is true. There is no Settings page for this on any edition, Home or Pro, on Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Using it is about as simple as software gets, and there is nothing to install:

1. Double-click wushowhide.diagcab. A small wizard opens. There is no setup and nothing is added to your machine.
2. Click Next. It scans for updates Windows is currently offering, which takes a few seconds.
3. Choose Hide updates to block something, or Show hidden updates when you want to let it back in later.
4. Check the box beside the driver — it is usually named after the manufacturer, such as Intel, Realtek, Synaptics or NVIDIA — and click Next.
5. Wait for the confirmation screen, then close it. The block applies immediately.

Two practical notes. Download it from Microsoft's own support page rather than a mirror or a "driver tools" site, because a file this widely searched for attracts imitations. And keep the copy you download somewhere you will find it again, since you will want it the next time this happens — and there usually is a next time, through no fault of yours.

Roll Back Driver, and Why It Is Often Grayed Out

Rolling back is the gentler option when it is available: Device Manager, right-click the device, Properties, Driver tab, Roll Back Driver. Windows swaps the current driver for the one it replaced and asks you why, which it uses for its own reporting.

Very often that button is gray, and this is a moment where people reasonably assume something is wrong with their system. Nothing is. Windows keeps one previous driver, and only for a while. The copy disappears when disk cleanup runs, when certain feature updates install, and it was never there at all if the driver was installed fresh rather than replacing an earlier one.

A gray button simply means that particular door is shut. The route in that case is to uninstall the current driver, hide the update as above, and install the manufacturer's version deliberately — which is a better outcome anyway, because you end up on a driver somebody chose for your hardware rather than one that happened to be there before.

If the device you are wrestling with is a display adapter, it is worth reading our honest guide to updating drivers alongside this one, since graphics drivers are the category where the manufacturer's own installer is most clearly worth using.

The Setting That Sounds Right and Half-Works

Most people find this one before they find anything else, try it, and are disappointed — so it deserves an honest description rather than being left out.

Press Windows+R, run sysdm.cpl, open the Hardware tab, and click Device Installation Settings. It asks whether you want Windows to download manufacturer apps and custom icons for your devices. Answer No.

What that genuinely does is reduce the extra material Windows fetches for your hardware — vendor utilities, branded icons, companion apps. What it does not do, despite the wording strongly implying otherwise, is reliably stop driver updates arriving through Windows Update.

So set it to No, because it is a sensible setting and it reduces clutter. Just do not expect it to solve this on its own, and do not conclude you set it wrong when the driver returns. The wording is misleading in a way that has sent a great many people down the wrong path, and noticing that is not a failure of attention.

The Heavier Option on Windows Pro

Pro, Enterprise and Education can block driver updates as a class through Group Policy. Press Windows+R, run gpedit.msc, and go to Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Update. Enable the policy that excludes drivers from quality updates.

Be clear about the trade before using it. This blocks all driver updates, not the one that is bothering you, which means you also stop receiving genuine fixes and the occasional firmware or security update delivered as a driver. It suits a machine that must not change — a till system, a machine running one critical application — far more than it suits a personal laptop with one awkward touchpad.

If you are on Home and have just discovered that gpedit.msc does not exist on your edition: that is expected, and you are not missing out. The uninstall-then-hide method is the one this page recommends for everybody, and it is more precise than the policy anyway. Guides that lead with Group Policy tend to leave Home users feeling short-changed over a route they would have been better off not taking.

What Hiding Really Does, and What It Does Not

Hiding is a soft block, and knowing its edges saves you a second round of confusion later.

Method	Blocks	Worth knowing
Hide with the troubleshooter	One specific version of one driver	Everything else keeps updating normally. A newer version from the same maker can still arrive later.
Device Installation Settings	Vendor apps and icons	Sensible to set, but not a driver block despite the wording.
Group Policy (Pro)	All driver updates	A hard block. Also stops the good ones. Best for machines that must not change.
Pausing updates	Everything, temporarily	Useful breathing space while you work, but it expires and then installs everything at once.

Two limits worth stating plainly. On a work or school laptop, policy set by whoever manages it overrides your hidden updates, so if a driver returns on a company machine the answer is a conversation rather than a tool. And a hidden update stays hidden indefinitely, which is fine in the short term and worth revisiting — the release that broke your hardware is often followed by one that fixes it.

Set yourself a reminder for a couple of months out, unhide it, and see. If it is still bad, hide it again in thirty seconds. That is a much better position than blocking something permanently and forgetting why.

If It Comes Back Anyway

What happened	Most likely reason	What to do
Driver returned within minutes	Windows checked for updates before the hide was applied	Uninstall again, run the troubleshooter immediately, do not click Check for updates in between
The driver is not in the hide list	It is still installed, so nothing is pending yet	Uninstall it first. The list only shows updates being offered right now
Returned days later, different version	Working as intended — you hid one version, this is another	Hide the new one too, or install the manufacturer's driver so Windows sees nothing newer worth offering
Reinstalls itself with no update showing	A manufacturer updater app is doing it, separately from Windows	Look for a vendor support or update assistant app and turn off its automatic updates
Uninstall option does nothing	The driver files stayed on the machine	Uninstall again and check the box to remove the driver software this time
Nothing sticks on a work laptop	Policy from your IT team overrides local choices	Ask them. This is by design and not something to fight from your end

If none of these fit, the useful thing to send anyone helping you is the driver version and date from the Driver tab, plus whether the item appeared in the hide list. Those two facts narrow it down faster than any amount of describing the symptom.

When You Should Let the Update Through

Blocking a driver is the right call when a specific update broke specific hardware. It is the wrong call as a general policy, and it is worth saying so given how many pages present driver updates as something to be avoided on principle.

Driver updates sometimes carry firmware fixes and, occasionally, security fixes — graphics and networking drivers especially. A machine that has blocked everything for two years is carrying real risk for no benefit, usually because somebody blocked one thing once and never revisited it.

The honest working rule: if a device works, leave its driver alone, and do not go hunting for updates it does not need. If a device stops working after an update, block that update, install the manufacturer's version, and put a note in your calendar to check again in a couple of months.

And to say the obvious thing plainly, because the advertising is relentless: you do not need a driver updater program. They solve a problem you do not have, they frequently install more generic drivers than the ones you already had, and the free ones have a long history of arriving with things you did not ask for. Nothing on this page needs anything beyond Device Manager and one small file from Microsoft.

What This Page Said in 2016

The original version of this post went up in February 2016 and pointed people at the troubleshooter, which was the right tool then and is still the right tool now. On that, it holds up better than most pages of its age.

What it did not do was explain the ordering, and that turns out to be the whole difficulty. A reader who followed the 2016 steps exactly could run the troubleshooter, find the driver missing from the list, and reasonably conclude the tool did not work — when in fact nothing was pending to hide yet because the driver was still installed. That is a frustrating place to be left, and the page left people there.

It also never said the plain thing that this page now leads with: the tool is not part of Windows and you have to go and get it. That single sentence would have saved a lot of people a lot of searching through Settings for something that was never there.

So the steps have not changed much. What has changed is that the page now tells you the sequence, and tells you why the sequence exists.

Your Questions, Answered Straight

Why does Windows keep reinstalling a driver I removed?

Because Windows Update treats drivers the same way it treats security patches. It compares what your machine has against what it thinks your machine should have, sees a gap, and fills it. It has no way of knowing you created that gap deliberately. Nothing you did was wrong, and removing it more firmly will not help — the gap has to be hidden rather than simply left empty.

How do I stop Windows reinstalling a specific driver?

Uninstall the driver first, then immediately hide the update with Microsoft's Show or hide updates troubleshooter, wushowhide.diagcab. The order matters, because the tool can only hide an update that Windows is currently offering. Hiding it while the driver is still installed does nothing, since there is no pending update to hide yet.

Where do I get the Show or hide updates troubleshooter?

It is a separate download from Microsoft, published under KB3073930, and it has never been built into Windows. That is genuinely why you could not find it in Settings — it is not there to find. The file is called wushowhide.diagcab, it needs no installation, and you run it by double-clicking it.

Why is the Roll Back Driver button grayed out?

Because Windows no longer has a previous driver to go back to. It keeps only one prior version, and it discards that copy during disk cleanup, after certain updates, or if the driver was never replaced but installed fresh. A grayed-out button is not a fault on your machine, it just means that particular door is closed and you need the manufacturer's own installer instead.

What does hiding an update actually do?

It tells Windows Update to skip that specific item while continuing to deliver everything else, which is exactly what you want. It is a soft block rather than a permanent one: it applies to that version of that driver, so a newer version from the same manufacturer can still arrive later. On a managed work machine it can also be overridden by policy.

Does the Device Installation Settings option stop driver updates?

Only partly, which is why it disappoints people who try it first. Setting it to No reduces what Windows fetches automatically for your hardware, mainly manufacturer apps and custom icons, and it does not reliably stop driver updates arriving through Windows Update. It is worth setting, but it is not the answer on its own.

How do I block driver updates completely on Windows Pro?

Pro and above can use Group Policy. Open gpedit.msc and go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Update, and enable the setting that excludes drivers from quality updates. This is a hard block covering all drivers rather than one, so use it when a machine needs stability rather than when one device is misbehaving.

Can I do this on Windows Home?

Yes. Home has no Group Policy editor, but the uninstall-then-hide method works identically there, and it is the method this page recommends for everyone anyway. Guides that reach for gpedit.msc first tend to leave Home users thinking their Windows is broken or incomplete, when the supported route was available to them the whole time.

How do I make sure I am uninstalling the right driver?

In Device Manager, expand the category, right-click the device and open Properties, then the Driver tab. Note the driver version and date before you change anything. When you uninstall, check the box offering to remove the driver software if it appears, otherwise Windows keeps the files and reinstalls from them immediately.

What if the driver comes back even after I hid it?

Usually the timing slipped and Windows reinstalled it before the hide was applied. Uninstall it again, run the troubleshooter straight away without checking for updates in between, and confirm the item appears in the hidden list afterwards. The other common cause is a manufacturer's own updater app running separately from Windows Update.

How do I unhide an update later?

Run wushowhide.diagcab again and choose Show hidden updates instead of Hide updates. Select the item and it becomes eligible again at the next check. This is worth doing every few months for anything you have hidden, because the reason you blocked it is often fixed in a later release.

Should I install drivers from the manufacturer instead?

For graphics cards, printers, sound hardware and laptop-specific components, usually yes. The manufacturer's version is normally newer and more complete than the one Windows Update carries. Download it from the manufacturer's own site rather than a driver-download aggregator, and install it after hiding the Windows Update version so the two do not fight.

Is it risky to block a driver update?

Less risky than blocking a security patch, but not free. Driver updates sometimes carry firmware or security fixes alongside the functional changes. Blocking one that broke your hardware is a sensible trade for the weeks until a corrected version appears. Blocking drivers as a general habit is not, and it tends to be forgotten about.

Why did the update break my hardware in the first place?

Usually because Windows Update carries a generic driver from the chipset maker rather than the customized one your laptop manufacturer built for that exact model. The generic one is technically newer and genuinely worse on your machine. This is common with touchpads, audio and display drivers, and it is not a sign that anything on your computer is damaged.

Does this work for Windows 11 as well as Windows 10?

Yes, the method is the same on both. The troubleshooter predates Windows 11 and still functions on it, and Device Manager works identically. Some Settings screens have moved between versions, but nothing in the uninstall-then-hide sequence depends on them.

Should I use a driver updater program to manage this?

No. Those tools solve a problem you do not have, frequently install worse drivers than the ones you already had, and the ad-supported ones are a long-standing route for unwanted software. If a device works, its driver does not need updating. If it does not work, you want that one device's driver from its manufacturer, chosen deliberately.

Worth Reading Next

Revision note. Originally published February 15, 2016. Rewritten August 22, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. The tool it recommended then is still the right one now, which is rare for a page this old. What the original never explained was the ordering — that you have to uninstall the driver before the troubleshooter can hide it — so readers who followed it exactly found an empty list and reasonably concluded the tool was broken. That sequence, the reason behind it, the grayed-out Roll Back button, and an honest account of what the Device Installation Settings option does and does not cover are all new here. If your driver is behaving differently from anything described above, please write in with the version and date from its Driver tab — that one detail usually explains the rest. And if you have been fighting this all evening: you were not doing it wrong. The step everyone is missing is a download that Microsoft never put where you would look for it.