How can I stop Windows XP from automatically installing drivers?

I don't want Windows XP to install drivers automatically without asking for me to or not. I know I got it to somehow before, but I just reformatted a few weeks ago and I want to get that option back. The main reason is that when installing video card drivers I don't want it to install the 29.58 ones automatically when I restart.

Start - right click on my computer - properties - automatic updates.. uncheck Keep my computer blaa blaa blaa..

That won't do drivers. That'll just stop you from getting updates.

You could try and go to:

Rclick my computer\manage\services and aplications\services and disable the upload manager (it does send driver info to MS)

Or this is a reg tweak (use at your risk)


Export the Device Path value in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
entVersion for backup purposes.
Now delete the Device Path data (all the locations entered).
XP should not be able to auto-install drivers without you manually pointing to them.

not sure if these work so let me know would you?

stop PLUG and PLAY service

Disabling upload manager did work. It's not the exact same way it was before (it doesn't even detect that something's installed w/o a driver), where as now I have to actually have it scan for hardware changes, but it works ok now I guess Thanks for the help.

Oh wait, nm, it didn't work.

Just tried the registry modification and it worked just like it used to Thanks again

Weird thing is, I don't think I ever did any tweaks to have it do that previously... it seemed like all of a sudden it just did it. Maybe I just don't remember though.