How to Roll Back a Driver in Device Manager on Windows

What Roll Back Driver actually does

Every time a driver is updated, Windows keeps the previous package in the driver store (C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository) instead of deleting it. Roll Back Driver simply reactivates that stored predecessor for the device and rebuilds the device stack around it. The swap touches exactly one device and leaves the rest of the system alone; a restart is recommended afterwards, and it is mandatory for graphics, network and storage drivers. If several updates were installed in a row, the rollback goes back exactly one step — not to the oldest version you ever had.

That is also why the button is sometimes greyed out: no previous version exists in the store, because the driver arrived with Windows and was never updated, or because the older package was cleaned away. In that state a rollback is simply impossible, and the way back is manual — uninstall the current driver and install an older package from the vendor yourself. Admin rights are required either way.

• One device at a time: GPU, audio, Wi-Fi, touchpad, printer — anything listed in Device Manager
• Restores exactly the previous version, not several versions back
• Greyed-out button means no older driver is stored — manual reinstall is the only route
• Requires an administrator account
• Windows Update can push the same broken driver again — block driver updates to make the rollback stick

Rolling back step by step

Press Win+X and open Device Manager, then locate the misbehaving device: Display adapters for a GPU, Sound, video and game controllers for audio, Network adapters for Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Right-click the device, choose Properties and switch to the Driver tab; note the Driver Version and Driver Date shown there so you can verify the change afterwards. Click Roll Back Driver, confirm if Windows asks, and let the swap finish — it takes seconds. Reboot if the device is a GPU, network or storage device, then reopen the same Driver tab and check that the version number has dropped to the older one.

The whole operation works offline, which is exactly what you want when the new driver killed your network adapter. If the device misbehaves the same way after the rollback, the previous driver was not the culprit either: continue with a clean reinstall using the vendor's own installer — for graphics cards, the thorough route is a DDU clean install. And never delete anything inside DriverStore by hand to tidy up: that folder is managed by Windows, and manual surgery there breaks unrelated devices.

When Windows keeps restoring the new driver

The classic disappointment: you roll back, everything works, and a day later Windows Update silently reinstalls the same broken driver. That is default behaviour — Windows Update delivers driver updates automatically and does not remember your rollback. To make it stick, stop automatic driver updates: on Pro editions via Group Policy (Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Update → Do not include drivers with Windows Updates), on Home via the equivalent registry value, or system-wide through Device Installation Settings.

If the button was greyed out from the start, the manual path is: download the older driver from the vendor's archive — NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and Realtek all keep them — then uninstall the device in Device Manager with Attempt to remove the driver for this device checked, and run the downloaded installer. System Restore is the fallback when a whole feature update broke several drivers at once: a restore point from before the update reverses driver changes too. Match the driver to your Windows build, because a very old driver may refuse to install cleanly on a very new build.

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