I want to be able to install drivers myself, but I don't want the system to do it. I think this is a reasonable expectation. I'm aware that Device Installation Settings can stop Windows from getting drivers from Windows Update, but it won't stop Windows from installing drivers that it already has locally when you connect a compatible device, or when you 'scan for hardware changes' in Device Manager. In Group Policy Editor there is a section all about this in: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation Can anyone tell me how to configure this? You would think that these settings together would do that, but they don't: Cheers
Actually they do. However, since these settings only apply to new driver installations they won't work for any devices the OS already knows about. To block those you'll have to delete them, e.g. using device manager (enable "show hidden devices" to be able to delete disconnected devices as well).
The block works, but the Admin override doesn't. Setting these policies (with all others "not configured") means I can't install any drivers at all.
How are you trying to install the drivers? It's not possible from the "found new hardware" notification, you'll have to go through device manager. Not sure how it works in the case of driver installers, but you may have to go through device manager for those as well.
Manually installing via Device Manager is what I want, but the policy configuration outlined above blocks that.
Well what's the error message it's giving you then? I haven't had problems with the policies set like that. I know the properties window will say "forbidden by policy", but still, you should be able to use the "Update driver" button to install the driver; also, you may need to do this multiple times for a single device. For something like a USB hard drive you'll probably need to install the driver for the USB mass storage device, one for the disk drive, and then a volume driver for each of the partitions.