Upgrade to windows 10 without installing Graphics driver?

Hi Guys,

Someone on the Clevo/Sager subforum adviced me to post here.

I want to upgrade my windows 8.1 with the Microsoft upgrade tool to Windows 10. Downloading and installing the upgrade goes without problem but then when Windows reboots and starts configuring the upgrade (blue screen with the "don't turn of your computer message") my system Freezes at 34% because of my defect 7970m graphics card.

At 34% in the configuration process, Windows calls the graphics card and tries to install the driver. But when that happens the system will crash. When I force shutdown Windows will revert the installation process.

I cannot remove the graphics card form the system because the BIOS detects missing hardware and shuts the system down after a few seconds. There is no switch in the bios to make the system only use the integrated Intel graphics chip.

Windows 8.1 doesn't install the drivers by default. That's why I was able to install windows 8.1 in the past.

Is there anyway to upgrade windows 10 and to bypass the Graphics driver installation?

@Phoenix Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. you can find my other post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/7970m-dead-cant-upgrade-to-windows-10.821746/

 

There's a way to delete drivers from the Windows 10 ISO using dism, but I guess you'll run into trouble when connecting to the internet later, the driver will probably get downloaded and installed.

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...river-from-driver-store?forum=win10itprosetup

 

To add to what @SL2 posted, would make sure to not connect to the internet during the install or immediately after the install.

Then I would black list the graphics driver from installing using group policy using the link @Papusan once posted.
How to Stop Windows 10 From Updating Specific Hardware Drivers

gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration | System | Device Installation | Device Installation Restrictions |
“Prevent installation of device that match any of these device IDs”
(Radio: enabled)
Click Show
(Paste in your device IDs for your 7970m card here)

gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration | System | Device Installation | Device Installation Restrictions |
“Prevent installation of devices using drivers that match these device setup classes”
(Radio: enabled)
Click Show
(Paste in {4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318})

For me, my nVidia GTX 880ms have the following hardware IDs in device manager:

Spoiler: HW IDs

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&SUBSYS_05AB1028&REV_A1
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&SUBSYS_05AB1028
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&CC_0300 (first card)
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&CC_030200
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1198&CC_0302 (second card)

Yours will be something different. You can check them in device manager on Windows 8.1, since they are specific to your model of 7970m card and not to the OS.

Also the graphics driver guid class is:

Spoiler: GUID

{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}

You can black list that graphics class GUID, too, for double insurance. That way no video adapter device drivers of any kind will get installed. With those black lists in effect, the driver can never be installed, not via Windows Update, not on its own, heck you can't even manually install it yourself without removing the group policy setting first!

Good luck!

Spoiler: Reference URLs:

https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/ho...from-automatically-updating-specific-drivers/
https://www.howtogeek.com/302595/ho...from-automatically-updating-hardware-drivers/
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...6-owners-lounge.797128/page-548#post-10515147
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...6-owners-lounge.797128/page-550#post-10515743
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ed-on-my-aw18-viking-2014-osd-and-gpu.797719/

 

Thanks guys. I think this might work!

One question. I don't want to do a clean install but just an upgrade provided by the upgrade utility. Does the Windows upgrade utility store an .ISO image somewhere on my HDD which I can manually run?

I've just looked into DISM and its pretty easy to remove drivers from a windows ISO, so that's promising! I just hope the upgrade utility provided me with an actual .iso and not some .exe file or folder.

 

Do you guys think its necessary to apply new thermal paste to the GPU? I am assembling the laptop atm. I don't think so right? the card is bricked anyway.

edit:

I did it anyway just to be sure

 

For the Windows upgrade utility, I don’t know. I think
where it's stored during the Windows Update Assistant, the installation image precise location is a moving target (link).

But maybe someone else like @Phoenix knows.
You can
direct download an ISO and kick off the upgrade yourself (howto)

Though, if you are doing an in-place OS upgrade, the good news is I am 98% sure that local group policy settings are migrated over to the new OS. I’m pretty sure we see that in corporate and other large deployments when we in-place upgrade versus using wipe clean after running a User State Migration Tool (USMT64). In fact, there is lots of noise that you’d need

Spoiler: a powershell command

Remove-Item -Path $env:windirSystem32GroupPolicy -Confirm:$False -Recurse -force;
Remove-Item -Path $env:windirSystem32GroupPolicyUsers -Confirm:$false -Recurse -force
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-ab
https://webcache.googleusercontent....d=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-ab

to clear out group policy on an upgrade. So, I think I’m 98% sure if you set GPO in Windows 8.1, then did an in-place upgrade, the settings would be inherited in the new Windows 10 install. Whether you want to risk that without editing the ISO file I can’t say.

 

So, what you're saying is that when I set group policy rules about not installing drivers. These rules will be transferred when doing the upgrade to W10. And that will prevent the graphics driver from being installed. Am i correct?

I dont really understand the powershell commands tbh.

Are there any risks of setting these group policy rules?

 

Allright, I am just gonna go for it!!

I edited the group policy settings. Windows is ready to reboot. Lets see if it works. Else i'll revert back to 8.1.

 

@Aroc YOUR SOLUTION WORKED!!! The upgrade ran successfully!! It took a long time to go past 34% but this time the system didn't hang.

Thanks so much for your help.

@SL2 Thank you too for helping me find a possible solution.

Now lets hope everything runs fine without too much problems
We'll see