Between NVIDIA itself and windows 10, no matter what I do the NVIDIA audio driver tries to install itself as an audio device. I always do a custom install of the drivers but something will always inadvertently install the stupid NVIDIA driver. Anyone know how to avoid this? It drives me nuts.

RSMCGUITAR
Between NVIDIA itself and windows 10, no matter what I do the NVIDIA audio driver tries to install itself as an audio device. I always do a custom install of the drivers but something will always inadvertently install the stupid NVIDIA driver. Anyone know how to avoid this? It drives me nuts.

I'm not sure if this post is going to be helpful, but here is my observation:
 
When the NVIDIA driver gets updated it automatically re-enables the high definition driver.
Sometimes during the install, you have a choice to unselect said driver but not always.
 
With the last 3 generations of Intel processors, I find that the onboard graphics
is plenty good enough for a DAW. No need for a separate graphics card.
Using the motherboard graphics, I am able to go into BIOS/UEFI and disable
the "High Definition Audio Driver". Ever since I have done that, the "High Definition Audio Driver" never gets re-enabled or re-installed.
 
Of course, this depends on your motherboard/BIOS/UEFI, whether you can actually disable your "High Definition Audio Driver".
 
 

Problem is, I want my graphics card. I can't afford to have a PC just for a DAW. This is my only PC

The audio driver is seperate to the videa driver.

I realize that but even though I custom install the graphics driver and make sure that a deselect the HD Audio... something still ends up installing it.

I uninstalled my HD audio driver in Control Panel> Programs and Features and it hasn't come back. I still have the Realtek audio driver installed. That's perhaps the problem. There should be a set of drivers available from your motherboard manufacturer an audio driver all by itself.
It's specifically the HD driver that can cause problems.

Looks like it was windows that installed it this time, for some reason.
screen capture freeware
 

RSMCGUITAR
Looks like it was windows that installed it this time, for some reason.

I've had to turn off Windows Automatic Driver Updates because of that crap.

I read on a computer forum about how windows 10 will over write proper manufacturers video drivers with generic drivers when it does an update. This was happening to me on my office computer. Then the video card app would tell me I need to update? I'd run the update from the app and windows would tell me I already have the best driver?? turns out there is no w10 driver for my card which sucks because it's only 2 years old. Nvidia g force 610.

Did you try disabling the driver in device manager? That's where I did it and it seems to have stuck.

Sock is correct.  Just disable the Audio device in Device Manager.