Windows 10 catastrophic failure...

M76

[H]F Junkie
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Jun 12, 2012
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So this is not a cry for help, just another vent my frustration with windows 10 topic.

This happened to me recently:

I'm building a PC for fun, and while I'm fiddling with it I wanted to just throw in a spare GPU that I had lying around so I can use my best GPU on my primary PC in the meantime. But that's only the backstory.

The main thing is: I slammed a Quadro 4000 in the build running W10 PRO (fully activated), driver updates from windows update disabled. But still it installed some microsoft driver for the GPU, don't know where it got it from, when driver updates are explicitly disabled.

And after this it became impossible to install any driver for any nvidia GPU. In my frustration thinking that the old graphics card might have failed after all, I took out the new GPU from my primary PC wasting my time and effort, only to get the same result. Impossible to install drivers for it, no matter which version, no matter what GPU Quadro or Geforce.

This is what I'd get when trying to run the nvidia driver setup utility:

Capture1.PNG


And this when trying to install drivers trough the device manager manually:

Capture3.PNG


So I thought I'd share this gem, as edification to the fanboys thinking we hate W10 for no damn reason. This is just one example on the long list of frustrating and infuriating experiences with this "Final" windows.
 
You have to use DDU to uninstall the drivers completely, right back to the MS basic driver, and then reinstall the appropriate Nvidia drivers after installing the new card - It's rediculious and Microsoft's idea of automatic forced driver updates is constantly getting it all wrong resulting in incorrect resolution settings with the correct resolution unavailable, garbled graphics on wake from sleep resulting in an issue that looks a whole lot like a failed GPU or extended boot times in the case of dual GPU laptops with certain Intel/AMD graphics chips.

Furthermore, I can confirm that DDU no longer blocks forced automatic driver updates on systems not equipped with GeForce experience or similar.
 
You know, I like the idea behind MS providing relatively up to date drives in their "repos", but the way they're handling distributing them is just asinine. For most people, the automatic driver handling is probably great, but for system builders it can really be a pain in the ass. Also, where is the option to "disable" automatic driver updates? I haven't looked for it, but I also haven't noticed it either. Is it a group policy setting, or is there an option in settings for it?
 
Also, where is the option to "disable" automatic driver updates? I haven't looked for it, but I also haven't noticed it either. Is it a group policy setting, or is there an option in settings for it?
It's only available in PRO / Enterprise versions. And only since the creators update I believe. It's in advanced setting in the windows update settings panel. (It won't show up if the group policy governing the same thing is enabled)
 
User error.

Sorry for posting a completely worthless comment. Just maintaining the same level of taste as the OP.
 
We use several Quadro cards for 8 monitor displays in an operations center. The drivers are not the same as the GeForce drivers. Two different devices, two different driver lines.

As for the "automatic update", that isn't what occurred here. Windows had to load some type of driver or else you wouldn't have gotten any video output all. Windows always has a built-in generic video adapter driver so whatever card you install, something is displayed on screen.
 
It's only available in PRO / Enterprise versions. And only since the creators update I believe. It's in advanced setting in the windows update settings panel. (It won't show up if the group policy governing the same thing is enabled)

This works for most hardware, but does not work for 'critical' hardware. So, it will not stop graphics from updating. It wont prevent chip set drivers from updating either if I remember right.
 
This works for most hardware, but does not work for 'critical' hardware. So, it will not stop graphics from updating. It wont prevent chip set drivers from updating either if I remember right.
That would be really really stupid. Since critical hardware is exactly the hw you don't want the OS to mess with on its own.
 
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That would be really really stupid. Since critical hardware is exactly the hw you don't want the OS to mess with on its own.

Ya, I know. It really sucks. I have a 970 in this pc, and it was constantly uninstalling my nvidia driver, and installing the older one from the windows update repo. I had it configured to not do driver updates at all...
 
Maybe it's an nvidia thing? I don't have this happening with my AMD R9 285. Small sampling I know, but all the people who have posted here with the same problem all have nvidia cards.
 
I just finished building a Precision T3610 with a Quadro NVS 420 in it. Clean build with FCU. I got a basic MS driver for the video card, which was identified properly. A simple download of the correct driver (not for the GeForce line) and it installed properly, without issue. You may have the improper drive left behind.
 
I just finished building a Precision T3610 with a Quadro NVS 420 in it. Clean build with FCU. I got a basic MS driver for the video card, which was identified properly. A simple download of the correct driver (not for the GeForce line) and it installed properly, without issue. You may have the improper drive left behind.
Oh geez, thanks for still running with the assumption that I'm completely stupid and tried to install the geforce driver for the quadro. Regardless of the fact that you can clearly see on the screenshot that it is the Quadro driver, as there is no geforce experience in it, and nview should've made it clear anyway. Not to mention that as my post states I've tried a geforce card as well, which resulted in the same message.

Also the good ol: "It worked for me in one example with completely different HW, therefore there is no possible scenario in which it doesn't work, cuz reasons"
 
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Oh geez, thanks for still running with the assumption that I'm completely stupid and tried to install the geforce driver for the quadro. Regardless of the fact that you can clearly see on the screenshot that it is the Quadro driver, as there is no geforce experience in it, and nview should've made it clear anyway. Not to mention that as my post states I've tried a geforce card as well, which resulted in the same message.

Also the good ol: "It worked for me in one example with completely different HW, therefore there is no possible scenario in which it doesn't work, cuz reasons"

I can't see what the ignored troll is saying but obviously he's spewing the same sort of bullshit dribble I ignored him for. Just ignore him, literally.
 
Not to mention that as my post states I've tried a geforce card as well, which resulted in the same message.
That's exactly why I posted my first comment, backing up the advice others gave. Instead of taking the low road and making assumptions of your own, work with the people trying to help you.
Also the good ol: "It worked for me in one example with completely different HW, therefore there is no possible scenario in which it doesn't work, cuz reasons"
Again, you are doing the very thing you accusing me of doing. I have been doing this for an amount of time measured in decades, not years. My advice given earlier hardly comes from one computer. Instead of the flaming and assumptions of your own, read through what myself and others have been saying. The solution is there.

They get a bad rap at times, but video driver issues like this have often required me to use a registry cleaner. Mostly, it's been on the AMD/ATI side, but many times I've been stuck in a loop where nothing as worked until I ran one of those tools.
 
FACT: Windows 10 automatically updates drivers, it appears to prioritize video drivers, sound drivers and printer drivers and it's constantly getting it wrong resulting in issues - Furthermore it's a feature that appears to be becoming increasingly difficult to control.

You cannot argue this point as it's beyond all doubt how the OS works.

Having said that, I find that booting into safe mode and wiping all traces of drivers with DDU, then rebooting and reinstalling the correct drivers has resolved every graphics driver issue I've ever encountered under Windows 10 - Just don't think that DDU still prevents drivers from updating as it most certainly does not any more.

As a word of warning, I also don't recommend manually applying updates anymore. I had an issue with a clients PC where the HP driver was acting like it was printing perfectly, except documents were leaving the print queue never to be seen again - Nothing was printed. I tried everything possible to remove the old driver and install the correct driver, nothing worked. As it turned out the issue was related to a sub component of the Creators Update that I would have been able to simply uninstall had the OS been updated using the [cough] 'updater', however because the client had applied the update manually that was no longer an option.

In the end the only fix was to back up the entire user profile, wipe the OS and reinstall Windows 10 prior to the Creators Update and forcibly disable the updating service - A win at the end of the day, but a costly one that's hardly ideal IMO.
 
That's exactly why I posted my first comment, backing up the advice others gave. Instead of taking the low road and making assumptions of your own, work with the people trying to help you.

Again, you are doing the very thing you accusing me of doing. I have been doing this for an amount of time measured in decades, not years. My advice given earlier hardly comes from one computer. Instead of the flaming and assumptions of your own, read through what myself and others have been saying. The solution is there.
This post only shows that you haven't even read the first line of my opening post. - I'M not looking for a solution, just shared the expereience. Makes me wonder what part you actually read then?

And your brilliant insightful advice based on decades of experience was: "A simple download of the correct driver (not for the GeForce line) and it installed properly" in my reading that is: "Download the proper driver fool" But tell me what else should I read into that?

They get a bad rap at times, but video driver issues like this have often required me to use a registry cleaner. Mostly, it's been on the AMD/ATI side, but many times I've been stuck in a loop where nothing as worked until I ran one of those tools.
The last time a simple VGA swap caused irreparable issues with windows was with Win95osr2 for me.
 
FACT: Windows 10 automatically updates drivers, it appears to prioritize video drivers, sound drivers and printer drivers and it's constantly getting it wrong resulting in issues - Furthermore it's a feature that appears to be becoming increasingly difficult to control.

You cannot argue this point as it's beyond all doubt how the OS works.

Having said that, I find that booting into safe mode and wiping all traces of drivers with DDU, then rebooting and reinstalling the correct drivers has resolved every graphics driver issue I've ever encountered under Windows 10 - Just don't think that DDU still prevents drivers from updating as it most certainly does not any more.

As a word of warning, I also don't recommend manually applying updates anymore. I had an issue with a clients PC where the HP driver was acting like it was printing perfectly, except documents were leaving the print queue never to be seen again - Nothing was printed. I tried everything possible to remove the old driver and install the correct driver, nothing worked. As it turned out the issue was related to a sub component of the Creators Update that I would have been able to simply uninstall had the OS been updated using the [cough] 'updater', however because the client had applied the update manually that was no longer an option.

In the end the only fix was to back up the entire user profile, wipe the OS and reinstall Windows 10 prior to the Creators Update and forcibly disable the updating service - A win at the end of the day, but a costly one that's hardly ideal IMO.
Printing issues seem rampant with W10, there are numerous cases of malfunctions. We had a case where it would print one page, then you had to sign out then back to be able to print another. Not to mention the office update they pushed out recently that completely broke some functionality under w10. (I can't remember exactly what it was, only that our secretary was out of her mind about it) And the only solution was to roll back the update, and block it from installing. Microsoft's stance? We might fix it later, but we're not revoking the broken update. I don't even know if it was ever fixed, this was back in august.
 
This post only shows that you haven't even read the first line of my opening post. - I'M not looking for a solution, just shared the expereience. Makes me wonder what part you actually read then?

And your brilliant insightful advice based on decades of experience was: "A simple download of the correct driver (not for the GeForce line) and it installed properly" in my reading that is: "Download the proper driver fool" But tell me what else should I read into that?


The last time a simple VGA swap caused irreparable issues with windows was with Win95osr2 for me.
Again, you continue to make assumptions...the very thing you are accusing me of doing, in both parts of your post.
 
Printing issues seem rampant with W10, there are numerous cases of malfunctions. We had a case where it would print one page, then you had to sign out then back to be able to print another. Not to mention the office update they pushed out recently that completely broke some functionality under w10. (I can't remember exactly what it was, only that our secretary was out of her mind about it) And the only solution was to roll back the update, and block it from installing. Microsoft's stance? We might fix it later, but we're not revoking the broken update. I don't even know if it was ever fixed, this was back in august.

There's also an issue with the latest version of Outlook 2016. As a tech I come across a number of situations where the lazy web developer sets up email for a businesses domain and set it up in a way that the owner has to use the domain providers POP server and their ISP's SMTP server - It's a hack that drives me crazy! Anyway, Microsoft have updated the account setup under Outlook to be friendlier with Gmail setups and the like, the downside of this is that when you try to set up a different SMTP server to the POP server 'with no authentication' and you do not check the box stating 'this server requires authentication' the account setup keeps prompting you for a password for the SMTP server that doesn't require authentication and you get stuck in a loop with no way out! It's ridiculous!

But it's OK as Thunderbird still works perfectly....

The number of printer related issues I have under Windows 10 that are far harder to resolve than they should be due to forced driver updates and the fact that the MS tool for blocking updates that should be part of the OS only allows you to block driver updates that it deems appropriate is surprisingly high - And as stated, the tool only allows you to block driver updates that it deems appropriate, which is not the drivers that you want to block in 80% of cases!

Honestly, the whole OS is a mess in comparison to Microsoft's own Windows 7.
 
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Again, you continue to make assumptions...the very thing you are accusing me of doing, in both parts of your post.
Sorry, I give up you're not making sense anymore. What is it exactly that you're trying to say? Yes I assume that you didn't read the first post. Because you keep trying to give some "advice" when I opened with saying I'm not asking for that. And you keep insisting on it even after I clearly said now twice that I'm not stupid, I used the appropriate drivers. There were no other advice in either of your posts, apart from how everything worked fine for you, and how "geforce and quadro are different lines" Like that was ever in doubt.
 
Just for the record M76, I've got a Quadro M4000 here that for all intents and purposes looks absolutely fine, but it's totally stuffed. I can't install it under Linux, under Windows when Windows 10 was first released I could install it but it came up with all sorts of graphical corruption.

Quite possibly they're prone to failure? I believe they're based on Fermi, so it'd sort of make sense? :)
 
Just for the record M76, I've got a Quadro M4000 here that for all intents and purposes looks absolutely fine, but it's totally stuffed. I can't install it under Linux, under Windows when Windows 10 was first released I could install it but it came up with all sorts of graphical corruption.

Quite possibly they're prone to failure? I believe they're based on Fermi, so it'd sort of make sense? :)
No the card actually works fine, it worked before and it works now. The solution was to roll back to a restore point before windows tried to install the driver for it. Which meant loosing all other changes,Had this happened on a mission critical pc it wouldn't have gone down that well.
 
That would be really really stupid. Since critical hardware is exactly the hw you don't want the OS to mess with on its own.
no no, once you set the Registry flag, and the GP flag, IT WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO INSTALL ANY UPDATES but you have to put the SETTING IN THREE PLACES, REGISTRY, GROUP POLICY, AND WINDOWS ADVANCED SETTINGS OTHERWISE YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHETHER WHEN YOU REBOOT IT DECIDED TO INSTALL YOUR FUCKING REALTEK AUDIO DRIVER AND SET IT AT DEFAULT EVERY FUCKING BUTT FUCKING TIME JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
 
AND I MEAN DRIVER UPDATES FROM MICROSOFT AUTO INSTALLING, NOT WINDOWS UPDATES, AND YES THIS IS IN ALL CAPS ON PURPOSE BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS INFURIATING.
 
but its the registry key "DriverSearching" set it to 0 and if you have notifications enable, you will get a notification everytime it tries to install a driver for you on your sidebar that says "Windows cant install updates, click to fix" DONT FUCKING CLICK THAT. UPDATES ARE FINE, IT MEANS I CANT HIJACK THE DRIVER YOU INSTALLED FOR THE DRIVER YOU DONT WANT.
 
There's also an issue with the latest version of Outlook 2016. As a tech I come across a number of situations where the lazy web developer sets up email for a businesses domain and set it up in a way that the owner has to use the domain providers POP server and their ISP's SMTP server - It's a hack that drives me crazy! Anyway, Microsoft have updated the account setup under Outlook to be friendlier with Gmail setups and the like, the downside of this is that when you try to set up a different SMTP server to the POP server 'with no authentication' and you do not check the box stating 'this server requires authentication' the account setup keeps prompting you for a password for the SMTP server that doesn't require authentication and you get stuck in a loop with no way out! It's ridiculous!

But it's OK as Thunderbird still works perfectly....

The number of printer related issues I have under Windows 10 that are far harder to resolve than they should be due to forced driver updates and the fact that the MS tool for blocking updates that should be part of the OS only allows you to block driver updates that it deems appropriate is surprisingly high - And as stated, the tool only allows you to block driver updates that it deems appropriate, which is not the drivers that you want to block in 80% of cases!

Honestly, the whole OS is a mess in comparison to Microsoft's own Windows 7.
DriverSearching set it to 0 in registry if you have this problem on work machines. It wont affect anything except windows looking for drivers to other hardware. Oh and under network discovery make sure to disable permanently (the setting switches on sometimes, Automatic Setup of Network Devices." Thats the FOURTH place to check if you dont want random shit installing.
 
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Sweet Agromahdi, thanks my friend.

Love your rant BTW! All so true! :)
 
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