Managing Device Installation Behavior

Policy settings for controlling device installation behavior in Windows 7 are found under the following node in Group Policy Object Editor:

Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Device Installation

Policies controlling device installation behavior, described in Table below, are per-computer policies only. They may apply to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 only, to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 only, or to all of these platforms-see the first column of the table for more information on which platforms to apply each policy. Policy settings that are new in Windows 7 are prefixed with an asterisk (*). Policy settings that were introduced in Windows Vista but have now been deprecated in Windows 7 are prefixed with two asterisks (**).

Although configured policy settings will be available for use on the computer without a reboot, they will take effect for only device installations initiated after the policy settings have been applied. In other words, the policy settings are not retroactive, and they will not affect the state of any devices that were installed previously.

Policies for Managing Device Installation Behavior

Policy Name	Description
Allow Remote Access To The Plug And Play Interface (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	Specifies whether remote access to the PnP interface is allowed. If you enable this setting, remote connections to the PnP interface will be allowed. If you disable or do not configure this setting, the PnP interface will not be available remotely. Note that this policy should be enabled only if the administrator of the system requires the ability to retrieve information about devices on this system from another remote computer, such as using Windows Device Manager to connect to this system from a remote computer.
Configure Device Installation Timeout (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	Specifies the number of seconds the system will wait for a device installation task to complete. If the task is not completed within the specified number of seconds, the system will terminate the installation. If you disable or do not configure this setting, the system will wait 300 seconds (5 minutes) for any device installation task to complete before terminating installation.
**Do Not Create System Restore Point When New Device Driver Installed (Applies only to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008)	If you enable this setting, system restore points will not be created when a new device driver is installed or updated. If you disable or do not configure this setting, a system restore point will be created whenever a new driver is installed or an existing device driver is updated.
Do Not Send A Windows Error Report When A Generic Driver Is Installed On A Device (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	If you enable this setting, a Windows error report will not be sent when a generic driver is installed. If you disable or do not configure this setting, a Windows error report will be sent when a generic driver is installed.
*Prevent Creation Of A System Restore Point During Device Activity That Would Normally Prompt Creation Of A Restore Point (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	Lets you prevent Windows from creating a system restore point during device activity that normally prompts Windows to create a system restore point. Windows usually creates restore points for certain driver activity, such as the installation of an unsigned driver. A system restore point enables you to restore your system to its state before the activity more easily. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Windows creates a system restore point as it normally does. Note: This policy setting replaces the Do Not Create System Restore Point When New Device Driver Installed policy setting used in Windows Vista.
*Prevent Device Metadata Retrieval From The Internet (Applies only to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2)	If you enable this policy setting, Windows does not retrieve device metadata for installed devices from the Internet. This policy setting overrides the setting in the Device Installation Settings dialog box on the user's computer. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the setting in the Device Installation Settings dialog box controls whether Windows retrieves device metadata from the Internet.
*Prevent Windows From Sending An Error Report When A Device Driver Requests Additional Software During Installation (Applies only to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2)	If you enable this policy setting, Windows does not send an error report when a device driver that requests additional software is installed. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Windows sends an error report when a device driver that requests additional software is installed.
Prioritize All Digitally Signed Drivers Equally During The Driver Ranking And Selection Process (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	When selecting which driver to install, do not distinguish between drivers signed by a Windows Publisher certificate and drivers signed by others. If you enable this setting, all valid Authenticode signatures are treated equally for the purpose of selecting a device driver to install. Selection is based on other criteria (such as matching hardware or compatible IDs) rather than whether the driver was signed by a Windows Publisher certificate or by another Authenticode certificate. A signed driver is still preferred over an unsigned driver. However, drivers signed by Windows Publisher certificates are not preferred over drivers signed by other Authenticode certificates. If you disable or do not configure this setting, drivers signed by a Windows Publisher certificate are selected for installation over drivers signed by other Authenticode certificates. Note: In Windows Vista, this policy setting was named Treat All Digitally Signed Drivers Equally In The Driver Ranking And Selection Process.
*Specify Search Order For Device Driver Source Locations (Applies only to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2)	If you enable this policy setting, you can select whether Windows searches Windows Update first, searches Windows Update last, or does not search Windows Update. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, members of the Administrators group can determine the order in which Windows searches source locations for device drivers.
Turn Off "Found New Hardware" Balloons During Device Installation (Applies to Windows Vista or later versions)	If you enable this setting, "Found New Hardware" balloons will not appear while a device is being installed. If you disable or do not configure this setting, "Found New Hardware" balloons will appear while a device is being installed unless the driver for the device has suppressed the balloons.

Best practices for configuring these policy settings include the following:

To ensure that users of Windows 7 computers have an optimal device experience, enable the Specify Search Order For Device Driver Source Locations policy setting and configure the setting to Search Windows Update First. This will prevent users from being able to modify their device installation settings, as described in the section titled "Configuring Device Installation Settings" earlier in this tutorial.
If you enable the Configure Device Installation Timeout policy setting, you cannot specify a time shorter than the default value of 300 seconds. Some devices, such as redundant array of independent disks (RAID) controllers and other boot-critical devices, can take a long time to initialize, and the default value for this setting was chosen to accommodate PnP installation of such devices to prevent boot failure. The reason an installation time-out value is specified at all is that improperly written driver installation packages can stop responding during installation, causing the system itself to stop responding. This was a problem in earlier versions of Windows because an improperly written driver could cause an interactive prompt to be displayed in the background where it couldn't be accessed. In Windows Vista, however, device installation has been moved out of Newdev.dll into the PnP service (DrvInst.exe), and the PnP service starts a separate, new process instance for each device installation. These architectural changes to how device installation works in Windows Vista make it much harder for an improperly written driver to make the PnP service stop responding. If the installation process instance does stop responding, however, the time-out value set here kills the process and displays the Add New Hardware wizard, allowing the user to specify a different driver to install. However, the reason for allowing administrators to be able to configure this policy setting is that if the administrator knows that the installation of some driver package(s) on some device(s) will take longer than the default time-out period (but not actually stop responding from the UI), she can allow the system to wait for a longer period of time for the installation to complete.

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Managing Device Installation Behavior

In this tutorial: