As you may already know, every device on your computer needs a driver. It can be a built-in Windows 10 driver, or it can be a hardware manufacturer driver published in the Windows Update catalog, or it can be installed by the OEM or by the user themselves manually from the vendor's CD or from a website.
A new version of a driver usually improves the functionality of the device and fixes errors from the previous version. But sometimes, a newer version causes more problems with the device that can even render it unusable.
In this case, you may want to roll back the device driver to its previous version, at least until the next driver version is available, which will likely fix any problems. The ability to roll back drivers was introduced in Windows with XP and has been included in every version since then.
To roll back to the previous version of a driver in Windows 10, do the following:
1. Open Device Manager. To do this, press the Win + X keys simultaneously and select “Device Manager” from the pop-up menu.
In Device Manager, go to the desired group of the device you are having trouble with the driver for and open its submenu. For example, if you want to roll back the driver for your graphics adapter, then you should expand the group named “Display adapters”.
2. Right-click on your problematic device in the list and select Properties from the context menu.
3. In the device properties dialog box, go to the “Driver” tab. There, you will find a button called “Roll Back Driver”. Click it.
4. The next dialog box, “Roll Back Driver Package”, comes with a series of options to collect feedback on why you wish to roll back the older driver. Select the appropriate reason and click the “Yes” button to confirm the operation.
You may be prompted to restart your computer to roll back to the previous driver version.
Once you're done rolling back the driver, you'll need to exclude the drivers from Windows Update so they don't get reinstalled automatically.
