Disable the Windows Update Device Driver Search Prompt

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use this procedure to turn off the prompt to search Windows Update or WSUS for device drivers when one is not found locally. When you enable this policy setting, Windows Update or WSUS is searched without asking the user for permission first.

This policy setting only affects a computer on which searching Windows Update or WSUS is enabled.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To disable the Windows Update device driver search prompt

  1. Open Group Policy Management Editor.

  2. In the navigation pane, open the folders: Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, and Driver Installation.

  3. In the details pane, double-click Turn off Windows Update device driver search prompt.

  4. Click Enabled.

  5. Click OK to save your settings.

Additional considerations

  • To open Group Policy Management Editor, click Start, then in the Start Search box, type mmc gpedit.msc, and then press ENTER. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

  • This policy does not disable searching Windows Update, it only disables the prompt asking for permission first. To disable Windows Update search for device drivers, see Disable Searching Windows Update for Device Drivers.

  • If you edit policy settings locally on a computer, you will affect the settings on only that one computer. If you configure the settings in a Group Policy object (GPO) hosted in an Active Directory domain, then the settings apply to all computers that are subject to that GPO. For more information about Group Policy in an Active Directory domain, see Group Policy (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55625).