Question Can I upgrade Windows 10 Build without updating driver for Storage Device?

heweaver

Reputable
Dec 4, 2019
37
1
4,545
I have a computer that will only allow me to install up to build 1607 of Windows 10. If I try to install any other build (fresh install) it sits forever at GETTING READY after updating devices gets to 100% and then it freezes. If I try to do an upgrade via windows update or directly by installing a newer build, it always hangs at around 73%. After much troubleshooting, it appears that the problem is actually the device driver it is using for the storage device of the main hard drive. The older builds of Windows has an older driver that works just fine...but during the upgrade to newer builds, it replaces this driver with a newer version that causes it to freeze and not work. (Even if I manage to get the newer build on there, it won't work in normal mode but it will in safe mode. If I boot from an external drive running Windows 10 newer builds, I still experience the freezing until I go into safe mode and DISABLE that one driver...then my external windows 10 works great ... of course I cannot disable the driver as a permanent solution as I will be booting from the drive it is running from).

I cannot figure out any way to prevent the update to newer builds from updating this driver...is this even possible?

Or could I stop the update when it is rebooting and use command prompt or another bootable copy of Windows to replace the file?

The problem I have mainly is that when the pc does freeze during the install or update, the next reboot says Windows could not be installed, please try again...or if I was doing the upgrade, it actually rolls back changes...
 
Last edited:

heweaver

Reputable
Dec 4, 2019
37
1
4,545
Long story short, its not the hard drive itself that's the problem but the actual driver for the storage controller in Windows... older driver works fine.

This is actually on a mid 2013 11 inch MacBook Air in BootCamp Windows 10 install. Other people with this exact same model have this exact same issue when trying to use BootCamp and Windows 10. I have worked on this issue for a few months going back and forth from forum to forum and I have narrowed it down to be the actual driver itself in Windows, and not the hardware, but just for this particular model of MBA when using Windows 10 on this machine.

If I could just prevent Windows from replacing that driver when it does the update to a newer build I should be fine. I just didn't know if this was possible.
 

heweaver

Reputable
Dec 4, 2019
37
1
4,545
I don't know if this will work with a Boot Camp Windows 10 install, but this link show how to stop Windows 10 from updating a driver. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-automatic-driver-updates-windows-10
I have seen those pages before... but the problem isn't an individual driver that's updating with regular Windows Updates...it only seems to replace this "default microsoft driver" with an updated version of itself during the installation of newer builds of Windows...