Never witnessed this myself but in theory I suppose it could be possible. Also for example when modding/updating videocards it is sometimes necessary to change the device id. Point being that flash tools can do this, it is not hardwired into any chip. But lets be totally clear, those are not normal situation by any means.
What DDU does is the same policy as as: Administrative Templates\System\Device Installation\Specify search order for device driver source locations\Enabled|Do not search WU via reg by setting [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching]"SearchOrderConfig"=dword:00000000. It only helps on specific cases like preventing windows to download a driver immediately when there isn't a local one (also prevents device manager to search drivers online manually when asked), that's why it's needed after cleaning a driver. But it doesn't cover everything like driver updates delivered via WU schedule.
Add-on cards have an EEPROM that stores VENdor, DEVice and SUBSYStem information. For saving costs and room, there are no EEPROMs for every single controller in a motherboard, so these parameters are programmed by the BIOS during initialization. Most common hardware ID change I've seen is an HD Audio codec SUBSYStem ID to enable a particular feature.
A vendor can change the PID purposely to avoid the installation of an old drive, known to be problematic, with a new BIOS version, rare but possible Another option is when a vendor, say Dell, decide to change the vendor ID from the OEM one , say broadcom, to its own. They usually do that in first place, but the oem vendor ID may survive from the project phase to the release, just because is overlooked, also very rare, but possible as well.
When I come to think about it, If you are using that version, (14393, which is 1607) you do have the option to only disable driver updates from WU. And yes, you can update the drivers manually without interfering with any policies. It's here:Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Update/Do not include drivers with Windows Updates
If it doesn't then i rest my case. Gees, this "Anniversary edition" seems full of bugs and insects!, "Defaultuser0", SSD disks that make it freeze etc etc...
What if someone don't want to the driver in the first place? he have to download + 200 MB then install it (and hope it doesn't break something), then rollback?
Agreed. Waste of time, disk space and bandwidth. Using Leporello's suggestion the driver is downloaded and saved in DriverStore. If you, by any chance, decide to install another driver and disable that device class specific policy, as soon as you uninstall the currently installed driver, the one downloaded from Windows Update will be installed. Really annoying.
Yes the driver will be downloaded and installed before it can be rolled back. But where is the problem if the downloaded drivers works fine - roll back comes in ONLY when the newer driver does not work as it should - otherwise newer version of drivers are always welcome as they come with more stability and bug fixes AFAIK.