The tool Display Driver Uninstaller has an option to disable driver updates; might be worth looking at as well.
But yes, the ultimate option is to just disconnect it from the network. I've also begun tinkering with 'Windows Ameliorated Edition' build which strips out all of the update engine and other bloat. CRT Emudrivers installed fairly painlessly on that, though I did run into an issue with videos not being displayed in Hyperspin, but that was resolved by disabling hardware acceleration in Flash.