Is there any way to lock your graphics driver?

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay. So NVIDIA screwed me up big-time months and months back, where any drivers pasrt 399.7 made my CADs package stop working, something that has never been fixed. There is no competition here - my CADs package is work, at it takes priority over everything else (if it comes to the point where that driver won't let me run a game, that game's had it).

(And? Funnily enough? Don't feel like buying a new CADs package - on the hope that it won't have the exact same problem - and arsing about learning to use it because NVIDIA arsed up their drivers.)

So, I have been just ignoring the Geforce updates - tried a couple of times to see if anything had been fixed... Nope, rolled back to 399.7.

Except, every so often, something appears to be installing a newer driver, and I don't notice until suddenly - like right now - I'm trying to do some frickin' work and I have to stop, because I have to go and re-install the old driver again.

I suspect the blame it likely Windows, and not NVIDIA (given the buggers won't even let you auto-update off now, only defer - which is a pain when they rol out broken patches like the one that completely hosed the start menu and I had to roll back from.) So I suspect the answer is probably going to be "no."

But I figured it would be worth an ask, if I can somehow tell Windows it can update stuff (when I say it can update...) but to explictly NOT update the graphics driver, like, ever.

So I don't waste half-and-hour every so often having to re-installing something instead of, y'know, actually DOING MY WORK.

[halfeye]

Okay. So NVIDIA screwed me up big-time months and months back, where any drivers pasrt 399.7 made my CADs package stop working, something that has never been fixed. There is no competition here - my CADs package is work, at it takes priority over everything else (if it comes to the point where that driver won't let me run a game, that game's had it).

(And? Funnily enough? Don't feel like buying a new CADs package - on the hope that it won't have the exact same problem - and arsing about learning to use it because NVIDIA arsed up their drivers.)

So, I have been just ignoring the Geforce updates - tried a couple of times to see if anything had been fixed... Nope, rolled back to 399.7.

Except, every so often, something appears to be installing a newer driver, and I don't notice until suddenly - like right now - I'm trying to do some frickin' work and I have to stop, because I have to go and re-install the old driver again.

I suspect the blame it likely Windows, and not NVIDIA (given the buggers won't even let you auto-update off now, only defer - which is a pain when they rol out broken patches like the one that completely hosed the start menu and I had to roll back from.) So I suspect the answer is probably going to be "no."

But I figured it would be worth an ask, if I can somehow tell Windows it can update stuff (when I say it can update...) but to explictly NOT update the graphics driver, like, ever.

So I don't waste half-and-hour every so often having to re-installing something instead of, y'know, actually DOING MY WORK.

Dunno. I do know my drivers won't update. I'm using win 7, and something stopped working. Now I can't update the nVidia drivers. Still seems to work.

[LordEntrails]

Windows 10?

I believe you can Google how to turn off automatic updates. I think you have to go into the registry or such to turn them off.

As for the nVidia driver, it won't update on it's own (though Win 10 might force it). You should be able to find a supported drivers list on your CAD package's website that gives you a few versions to chose from. Though you probably already know that and have the best one set.

[factotum]

Are you sure this is the driver updating itself, or is it some setting buried deep inside which is getting changed and which a driver reinstall resets back to default?

[Erloas]

I'm going to guess that it is Nvidia that is updating your drivers, not Windows. For point of refernce, I just checked my video card drivers (AMD) and they were out of date by about 8 months (maybe not exactly since they don't update every month, I think the newest one when I installed the card were about 2-3 months old). But the AMD utility that updates the drivers I don't have auto-loading.

So try not having the Nvidia control panel/settings (whatever they call it) not launch on startup or check there for auto-update settings.
Windows only forces the Windows updates, but that is because after decades of user data, they know if they don't force updates there are always large groups of people getting viruses exploiting vulnerabilities that were patched out years ago but that they never applied those patches.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'm going to guess that it is Nvidia that is updating your drivers, not Windows. For point of refernce, I just checked my video card drivers (AMD) and they were out of date by about 8 months (maybe not exactly since they don't update every month, I think the newest one when I installed the card were about 2-3 months old). But the AMD utility that updates the drivers I don't have auto-loading.

Don't think so - double checked, and NVIDIA Experience speciafilly has a setting which says "automatically download drivers and let me choose to install them" and that's unchecked - so it doesn't download or install anything on its own - and given that it's always been "notification" and not automatic install, it seems less likely that's the culprit. Seems to only happen (or be discovered after) Windows 10 does an update.

Windows only forces the Windows updates, but that is because after decades of user data, they know if they don't force updates there are always large groups of people getting viruses exploiting vulnerabilities that were patched out years ago but that they never applied those patches.

Which is all fine and dandy until they release a patch that borks a load of their user-base.

As for the nVidia driver, it won't update on it's own (though Win 10 might force it). You should be able to find a supported drivers list on your CAD package's website that gives you a few versions to chose from. Though you probably already know that and have the best one set.

IMSI are not really all that concerned with supporting the version that isn't this year's. (And we stayed with version 21 after trying 2016, because they were like "we've decided to take this rendered out unless you pay an extra £40, so all your materials will have to be re-done from scratch" and I was like "I have hundreds of models, frack off." Purportedly I'm told that rendered is back in the main release since, but I'm not in a big hurry to fork out for it for no good reason - especially not outside their sale period when they do a new version release...)

...

Actually, IMSI DON'T appear to have a list of supported drivers anywhere for TurboCAD that I can find.

Are you sure this is the driver updating itself, or is it some setting buried deep inside which is getting changed and which a driver reinstall resets back to default?

If it it, there'd be no way to find it, but GeForce experience itself doesn't seem to work that way.



Looks like the answer would appear to be "no," and I'll have to live with it. Whelp, thanks folks, it was worth a shot.

[factotum]

I did a search for TurboCAD nVidia driver issues and I found a thread on the TurboCAD forums about it, which I was quite excited about until I realised it was posted by you, AotrsCommander! I did find another thread suggesting that changing the "native draw" mode from RedSDK to GDI might fix some issues, though, would that be relevant for you?

[Aotrs Commander]

I did a search for TurboCAD nVidia driver issues and I found a thread on the TurboCAD forums about it, which I was quite excited about until I realised it was posted by you, AotrsCommander!

Yeah, so you can see the amount of fracks TurboCAD officially gave, can't you...?

I did find another thread suggesting that changing the "native draw" mode from RedSDK to GDI might fix some issues, though, would that be relevant for you?

No, sorry, both of those are rendering options that v21 doesn't have (and RedSDK was the one they apparently tried to replace Lightworks - which I use - with...) I fiddled with every setting on the renderer I could the first time, and it was all the same result, I'm afraid.

[Telok]

Something I used to when I had to deal with that stuff was to set my firewall to be super restrictive and prompt at all new traffic. It eventually let me ID the process and ip address involved so I could deny them.

It's a nuisance for a while, and your firewall may not be set up for that level of precision and control. I regret that I cannot recall the precise firewall software. It was years ago before I switched to linux OSs. I do recall that it was not one of the major consumer brands, but something I scored a free copy of from a relative who got it via work as a trial or something.

[LordEntrails]

Google pointed me to this; https://www.windowscentral.com/how-s...lly-windows-10

Looks like you can indeed turn off automatic updates for Windows 10.

[snowblizz]

Google pointed me to this; https://www.windowscentral.com/how-s...lly-windows-10

Looks like you can indeed turn off automatic updates for Windows 10.

If you've upgraded to the lastest version of Win10 yes. The problem is that's not really advisable either. You don't want holes in the OS.

Don't think so - double checked, and NVIDIA Experience speciafilly has a setting which says "automatically download drivers and let me choose to install them" and that's unchecked - so it doesn't download or install anything on its own - and given that it's always been "notification" and not automatic install, it seems less likely that's the culprit. Seems to only happen (or be discovered after) Windows 10 does an update.

I've never had Windows 10 update gfx drivers. Only triggered by me specifically clicking install in nVidia expereince.
Nowadays, nVidia insists I need to be logged in to my nVidia account to downlaod stuff. It sometimes asks me for a password I ahve to look up when I want to isntall new drivers.

Maybe see if you can get it to forget your Nvidia aco**** credentials t which point it sholdn't be autoinstalling anything.

I still think it is unlikely Win10 is autoinstalling but since Win10 acts differently for different computers, like I heard pushing different versions for testing purposes... who knows.

[Aotrs Commander]

If you've upgraded to the lastest version of Win10 yes. The problem is that's not really advisable either. You don't want holes in the OS.

Agreed. I would never have turned it off permentantly, but had forcing it to wait a month or so until they fixed that patch and then finding they hadn't and having to do it again would have been infuriating.

I've never had Windows 10 update gfx drivers. Only triggered by me specifically clicking install in nVidia expereince.
Nowadays, nVidia insists I need to be logged in to my nVidia account to downlaod stuff. It sometimes asks me for a password I ahve to look up when I want to isntall new drivers.

Maybe see if you can get it to forget your Nvidia aco**** credentials t which point it sholdn't be autoinstalling anything.

I still think it is unlikely Win10 is autoinstalling but since Win10 acts differently for different computers, like I heard pushing different versions for testing purposes... who knows.

Who knows, indeed.

Whelp, just have to keep setting it back when it does, I guess.

[GrayDeath]

If everything else fails, how about switching to an AMD Card?

Or using 2 Cards, a slower AMD "Work only" card (dont know how much Power TurboCAD needs) in your second PCI Slot mayhap?

[1dominator]

See if there is some sort of NVIDIA update service running in the background, and if it is shut it off and make sure it is disabled on startup.

You can see a list of services along with brief descriptions using the task manager, and you can prevent them launching on startup (and see more detailed descriptions) using the services by opening the RUN prompt (Windows key + R) and entering services.msc (or by going to C:/Windows/system32 or C:/Windows/SysWOW64 and launching services.msc). This will bring up the utility showing all installed services and their settings, anything with NVIDIA in its name is a suspect.

You might have to do some sleuthing online to find out which particular service may be responsible for auto updating the drivers, since there may be several NVIDIA services with rather vague descriptions. It is also possible that the culprit service has a different name altogether, try googling along the lines of "Nvidia driver update service" and see what you can find.

[Bohandas]

[QUOTE=Aotrs Commander;24267931]I suspect the blame it likely Windows, and not NVIDIA (given the buggers won't even let you auto-update off now, only defer - which is a pain when they rol out broken patches like the one that completely hosed the start menu and I had to roll back from.)/QUOTE]

There's ways to hack windows 10 so that it won't update. You've gotta do a bunch of stuff though; including flagging absolutely all of your internet connections as metered connections, disable the windows update service in the "services" menu, running winaero tweaker's disable updates hack, setting the updater to run as a user without administrator priveleges, and I think also a couple of other things but I don't remember what offhand. Definitely do at least the first three things though. I don't think my computer has bothered me with any uodate BS since sometime in 2017.

[factotum]

I don't think my computer has bothered me with any uodate BS since sometime in 2017.

You know a lot of those updates are actually bug fixes and security updates, right? The whole reason Microsoft made it near impossible to avoid updates in Windows 10 is because of people who never updated their systems in earlier versions of Windows and thus contributed their machines unknowingly to every botnet going.

[halfeye]

You know a lot of those updates are actually bug fixes and security updates, right? The whole reason Microsoft made it near impossible to avoid updates in Windows 10 is because of people who never updated their systems in earlier versions of Windows and thus contributed their machines unknowingly to every botnet going.

Except the Microsoft botnet.

It's a question of whether the corporate or hacker threat is the more ominous one, and the answer is by no means clear.

[factotum]

Except the Microsoft botnet.

Frankly, if you believe Microsoft are trying to take control of your system, why are you even using Windows? They could have built whatever fantasy malware you're imagining into the very first version of Windows 10, or even Windows 7--no updates needed in either case. You know why I don't believe any such thing exists? Because somebody would have found out by now. It's trivial to monitor what network traffic your machine is sending out to the Internet, and there are plenty of people with a vested interest in keeping Microsoft (or any other big software vendor) honest.

[Bohandas]

Frankly, if you believe Microsoft are trying to take control of your system, why are you even using Windows?

1.) the issue is m0re that they're going to break things that worked before

2.) You don't call not being to turn off updates control?

3.) Why are you so reliant on microsoft? You do know there are third-party antivirus programs like Norton/Symantec and Malwarebytes, right? And they generally don't break everything like Microsoft's updates do.

In any case I would like to reiterate my suggestions to the op of setting all networks as metered network and turning the update service off in the "services" screen

[Erloas]

Virus scans are completely different than patching vulnerabilities. That you're trying to equate the two shows a very basic lack of understanding of the situation.

Not to mention that *if* MS tried to do a botnet then other virus scan programs would pick that up.

And while patches can sometimes have issues, I can't remember having that problem in maybe a decade or more. (when it comes to Windows patches, for games it is a completely different issue) Not to say that it never happens, but it is pretty rare. What *often* happens is someone *else* breaks something and users blame MS/Windows for it.
Also the drivers that Windows pushes via updates have a lot more testing done before they're pushes, and generally at least a few patches behind what AMD/Nvidia releases with their packages.

[tyckspoon]

like Norton/Symantec.. And they generally don't break everything like Microsoft's updates do.

You know how I know you don't use Norton?

[halfeye]

You know how I know you don't use Norton?

Does anyone use Norton?

[Aotrs Commander]

Does anyone use Norton?

My grandmother, because she a subscription came with the computer initially and she has just kept up with it.

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

IF the problem is the NVIDIA Chip, you could just delete the driver completely.

Which is what I would do. Then reinstall the driver and see if that fixes the problem. Might just have gotten a bad download for whatever reason.

If that doesn't fix the problem, you could always just delete the driver, and work without it.

Have you reached out to their customer support?

1 (800) 797-6530

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/chat/chat_launch/

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/contact/ for other numbers, non US numbers.

[AMX]

399.7 appears to be well over a year old by now, so it's possible Windos Update has a newer version by now.

I just noticed that ShutUp10 has an option to disable automatic driver updates, so that might be worth a try.