Updating to Windows 10 Version 2004/Conexant Drivers

Thanks for encouraging me. I am finally in 20H2 after using MS audio-drivers i.o. Conexant!

I did it after deselecting all autostarts from task-manager and after deselecting all non-MS-services from msconfig.

Thereafter I used the media creation tool for upgrade "on this PC" as upgrade was not offered even after three days on MS-drivers.

Everything worked fine.

Nevertheless I think I stay with MS-drivers until anybody can convince me of advantages from Conexant-drivers.

One more thing for anybody who's doing the same: after the upgrade, my "High definition audio device" (formerly Conexant) wasn't working until I installed the MS drivers again (it was listed under "other devices"). For that, you need to set the "DenyDeviceIDs"-value to "0". It took just a few seconds to install MS-drivers (same method as described some pages before), then I reset the value to "1" to prevent the system from installing Conexant drivers. No restart required.

Tom380,

I should have mentioned that I was able to manually update specifically to the latest 2H20 update, not just the 2004 update from May using the Microsoft direct link if you want to give that a go. And since you blocked the Conexant driver and are running the Microsoft HD Audio Driver I see no reason why it shouldn't work for you. It may be possible that you may not be "automatically offered" the 2H20 update not knowing the exact dynamics how MS targets a given system for updating. Point is I didn't want to wait and I had no problem  manually doing the update.

Thanks for your input. I meant waiting for the 20H2 update, not for the conexant driver. As stated above, with the complete registry settings I was able to stop the Windows HD Audio-driver to be "updated" to the old conexant driver, so I am on windows driver-only presently. That should be ok for the 20H2 update, I hope.

Despite trying all the methods on here, with Group Policy, the Registry and more, to stop Windows automatically re-installing the Conexant driver, as soon as I logged back onto the internet the driver was downloaded and reinstalled.

I have a HP Envy x360 with Windows 1909 Pro version. Anyone any ideas why this should happen?

If you tried via the registry-trick showed on "https://www.maketecheasier.com/block-driver-updates-specific-devices-windows10/" as recommended earlier:

There is a point missing in the description. In addition to the described steps, you not only need to have a KEY named "DenyDeviceIDs" under "Restrictions" but also a new DWORD named "DenyDeviceIDs" with value "1".

See "https://superuser.com/questions/1189380/is-there-any-way-to-control-device-installation-restrictions-via-the-registry"

Good luck! I am presently waiting to have the update offered on my HP Spectre 360.

This problem is slowly being addressed for, at least, some devices. I have two machines that had the Conexant Driver problem. One is an HP EliteBook that is only 9 months old, and the other an HP Spectre x360 that is almost 5 years old. In both cases, I replaced the Conexant driver with the generic Microsoft driver and was able to proceed to 2004. On both machines I used device id blocks to keep the Microsoft driver in place after the update. Both machines have since been offered 20H2, but I have not gone forward to 20H2 yet. The point I want to make is that both machines have since been offered new (late 2020) Conexant drivers. I have installed the new drivers and both machines continue to be offered 20H2.

An important thing to note is that, if you are using device id blocks to keep the Microsoft driver in place, it may not be obvious that an updated Conexant driver is available. On both machines, I was aware that newer Conexant drivers were available only because I was doing manual windows updates and watching the offerings closely. As I expected, the updates failed, presumably because of the device id blocks that are used to keep the Microsoft drivers in place. Somewhat to my surprise, however, the failure was not recorded in the update history.

I was also surprised that when I removed the device id block, the new Conexant driver was not automatically downloaded on the next Windows Update. Perhaps it would have been eventually, but I didn’t wait. I used “Update Driver” > “Search Automatically for drivers” in Device Manager to install the new drivers.

Of course, I have no idea how many devices will ultimately be offered updated Conexant drivers. I think most of us suspect that the number of affected devices is large. Hopefully the issue will get some press as we approach the end of support for 1909.