How to disable ASUS driver automatic installation on Windows 10

My Windows 10 Pro machine is used for handling sensitive data, so I do not install anything but an endpoint protection software, and everything is installed in Hyper-V containers.

I accidentally connected an ASUS mouse. Very soon I started receiving a nagging popup that I should install the Armoury Crate app (whatever that is), and I was very annoyed by this.

I did some investigation and it turned out that, without my consent, this freakin' mouse + Windows Update silently

• created two devices (TUF Gaming M5 mouse and TUF Gaming M5 keyboard (??)) and
• created two services (Armoury Live Update and AsusROGLSLService Download ROGLSLoader) and set them to autostart.

Now, knowing how careless ASUS is with regard to security, as it was hacked, and signing keys were compromised, this is literally a stab in the back. Why does Windows Update install a driver that phones back to ASUS and later can download arbitrary code on my machine? (Note that a driver is running at elevated privileges).

I disabled the services, and set the mouse back to HID compliant mouse (and works fine), but I cannot disable the "TUF Gaming M5 keyboard".

Anyway, my system is considered compromised by this Chinese trash mouse and now I have to reinstall everything.

My question is: how can I enforce that no other drivers except directly from Microsoft are installed, even if I plug in an ASUS mouse? I would like to see this mouse as HID Compliant mouse, without any ASUS-specific bloatware/security hole.

Solution 1:

To disable automatic driver updates:

• Run Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings
• Position to the Hardware tab
• Click "Device Installation Settings"
• Click "No (your device might not work as expected)"
• Click OK.