I’ve never liked the Conexant driver on my laptop and got really annoyed when I realized it was also the reason why I couldn’t update to the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. Since Microsoft reported the issue back in May, we haven’t got an answer other than “Wait for your OEM to provide a new driver while we work with Synaptics on it.” And as of today, this one is the ONLY issue Microsoft hasn't mitigated or resolved yet.
The Conexant driver sucks and this is just another big reason to get rid of it. There are many guides and forum posts on the Internet that tell you how to uninstall the driver, but none of them (afaik) tell you how to both fully remove the driver from your PC and completely block the automatic re-installation that happens on start-up to unlock the update to Windows 10 v2004.
Why no guide on the Internet does the job? Here's the explanation (see spoiler):
Step-by-step process (method 1):
Close everything and restart your PC.
Go to Settings > Apps and features and uninstall the Conexant SmartAudio app if you have it. Restart your PC if asked to do so.
Go to the Device Manager. Under the “Sound, video and game controllers” category there should be the Conexant device.
If you switched it to the Microsoft driver before, switch it back to the Conexant one using the “Update driver” option and restart your system if asked. If not, just skip to step 5.
Right-click on the device and select “Uninstall device”. When the confirmation dialog pops-up, check the “Delete the driver software for this device” as well. If asked, DO NOT restart your PC this time.
On the Device Manager, click on Action > Look for hardware changes. This should re-detect your soundcard and use the Microsoft audio driver instead of the Conexant one.
Check that the folder C:\Program Files\CONEXANT doesn’t exist. If it does, delete it.
Using the open-source tool DriverStoreExplorer, delete the driver by looking for it on the list, marking it, marking the “Force Deletion” option on the right and then clicking on “Delete Driver(s)”. To find it, look for the one(s) with Conexant as their Provider.
Open the wushowhide tool (direct link) from Microsoft.
Click on Advanced Options and uncheck “Apply fixes automatically”
Click on Next and let it look for pending updates.
When the process has finished, click on “Hide updates”. On the next step, the Conexant driver should now appear for you to mark it and hide the update.
Restarting your PC should no longer reinstall the driver.
In case the above method didn't worked for you, there's an alternative one:
Step-by-step process (method 2):
Close everything and restart your PC.
Go to Settings > Apps and features and uninstall the Conexant SmartAudio app if you have it. Restart your PC if asked to do so.
Go to the Device Manager. Under the “Sound, video and game controllers” category there should be the Conexant device.
Right-click on the device and select “Update driver”. On the window that pops-up, go to Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer and choose the "High Definition Audio Device" driver. If asked, DO NOT restart your PC this time.
Check that the folder C:\Program Files\CONEXANT doesn’t exist. If it does, delete it.
Using the open-source tool DriverStoreExplorer, delete the driver by looking for it on the list, marking it, marking the “Force Deletion” option on the right and then clicking on “Delete Driver(s)”. To find it, look for the one(s) with Conexant as their Provider.
Open the wushowhide tool (direct link) from Microsoft.
Click on Advanced Options and uncheck “Apply fixes automatically”
Click on Next and let it look for pending updates.
When the process has finished, click on “Hide updates”. On the next step, the Conexant driver should now appear for you to mark it and hide the update.
Restarting your PC should no longer reinstall the driver.
Something to notice is that the May 2020 update won’t unlock automatically and you might have to wait even a few days for Windows to realize you no longer have a problematic setup (if you want to wait less, you can also use the Windows 10 Update Assistant). Once the update appears, you can update without any problems (in my side I've got zero errors or blue screens, as opposed to what has been told with the Conexant driver).
And even tho it might be just something of my particular laptop, you might get some low volume levels when using the microphone Microsoft driver. To fix this, you can go to Settings app > System > Audio > Related settings options (on the top right corner) > Sound Control Panel. On the window that pops-up, go to the Recording tab, right-click on the microphone and go to Properties > Levels and change the microphone volume and the microphone amplifying to your liking.
UPDATE: After some time with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, the Conexant driver might re-install again. However, no issue has been noticed on my side when using the driver with this Windows version, so it seems the issues reported by Microsoft only happen during and inmmediately after the update. If you still don't want to have the driver on your PC, you can follow this guide again to remove the driver.
If your laptop had both the Conexant and the Harman Kardon drivers, there's a chance that the Harman Kardon driver had some sort of dependency on the Conexant one. On that scenario you have two options: remove the Harman Kardon drivers (create a restoration point before uninstalling so in case Windows isn't able to boot you have some sort of way to revert it) as well to see if just using the default Microsoft driver works for you, or reinstalling the Conexant driver after you update Windows. If you end up doing the second one, remember to uninstall both each time a new big Windows update is released so that you are able to update, then once the update has been done, reinstall them.
