How to Disable Driver Verifier on Windows 10?

I am trying to disable the Windows 10 driver signature verifier.

This is causing constant BSOD errors - all showing "Driver Verifier IOManger Violation"

I am trying to install an old video driver. I would like to completely disable the verifier program, but so far I can't.

I have spent the last few days researching and trying every variation of the following strategies

I rebooted into advanced setup options

in cmd.exe

shutdown.exe /r /o

I then hit F7 to disable driver signature verification

I opened gpedit.msc

Enabled the option for code signed drivers

Enabled Test Mode

I tried to disable any video drivers in use under device manager, but there are no video drivers installed at all.

In cmd.exe I ran "verifier" to open the driver verifier manager

I choose "Display existing settings"

All options read as "no"

I set compatibility mode on my driver install package and am running as administrator

After every install attempt the BSOD screen appears with the driver verifier error message.

Suggestions?

Solution 1:

the verifier settings are stored in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\VerifyDrivers and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\VerifyDriverLevel. Delete both entries to get rid of Driver Verifier.

Solution 2:

I'm going to leave this here for anyone who has the same problem I did:

1. Click on "See advanced repair options"
2. Go to "Troubleshoot"
3. Tap on "Advanced Options"
4. Click on "Start-up Settings"
5. Press 4 to start up in safe mode
6. Once you're logged in, type run
7. Type verifier.exe
8. Click "delete existing settings"
9. Go to the start menu and click "restart"

Hope this helps. I was in a frustrating loop where NOTHING was disabling driver verifier, but this worked for me, so I hope it does for you too.

Solution 3:

To expand on MagicAndre's answer. A bit of more generic info to help those who don't know how to access a non-default registry hive and/or may not see their drive in recovery mode (like my PCIe SSD, for example)

If you can't see Startup Options in your recovery mode, your Recovery partition might not be able to see your SSD drive. To check this, try opening the recovery command prompt. Once there, type diskpart and then list disk when the diskpart prompt appears. If you see the disk that matches your OS drive, then you can simply open regedit from the command prompt.

In regedit

1. Select HKEY LOCAL MACHINE and then hit File : Load Hive
2. Navigate to your OS Drive, then open \Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM (no file extension), give the hive a temporary name (e.g. CDRIVESYSTEM)
3. Navigate through registry - HKLM\CDRIVESYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SESSION MANAGER\MEMORY MANAGEMENT\VerifyDrivers
4. Remove VerifyDriverLevel and VerifyDrivers values
5. Hit File : Unload Hive
6. Restart your machine. With any luck you'll stop crashing on OS boot!

Can't see drive

If you can't see your OS drive there, you can try creating a bootable USB stick with WinPE installed on it. Booting into WinPE may allow your disk to appear in diskpart, in which case you can follow the regedit steps above to remove the verifier values from HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SESSION MANAGER\MEMORY MANAGEMENT