I need to find a way to programmatically prevent windows from searching the web for a new driver for a USB device when it is plugged in after I have just installed the correct device driver for it.
I acknowledge this question has been asked and answered before. But the answer that was accepted in that case has to do with reconfiguring the machine’s group policy settings. The modern, MS-official version of the accepted answer can be found here. But that does not solve my problem. We don’t want to reconfigure customer machines, even if they would let us, which they will not.
I thought I might have found my answer on a related MS page about modifying the DevicePath registry key. It indicates I could get Windows to search an additional folder (that we would specify) for the device driver before going out to the web if I can change that registry key. But then I read this note-of-doom:
If enabled, the Windows Update driver search is performed after the DevicePath search, and occurs even if a matching driver package is found in a DevicePath specified folder. After all enabled searches are completed, Windows ranks each package to determine the best match for the device.
In other words, it appears that Win7 assumes it will always know best even though this clearly not the case.
On the other hand, all of my references are several years old. So has Microsoft since given us a way to do this and I just am not finding it?
Some background specifics that I don’t think matter but in case you think they do:
I have a client with web application that works with a pair of specialized USB devices (one a card scanner, the other a label printer). Each device comes with its own installer and we’ve created a WIX bundled installer that wraps those installers into a single download and then runs each in turn. Users are instructed to NOT plug in either device until after the downloaded installer runs. But, even when the user waits, the first time they do plug in the devices, Windows heads out to the web, searches for newer/better device drivers, and, for one of the devices, will download and install the WRONG DRIVER and render the device useless.