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There's a literal option in the BIOS setup to disable it. You then uninstall/disable the Gigabyte auto-updater and that's it.

By not using Windows or somehow instructing your Windows not to run this file at startup.

> By not using Windows

I'm not sure that is a real solution. The motherboard manufacturer could target other OSes as well, so unless you use a Mac where the hardware is fully controlled by Apple, you'll end up at risk.

In any OS, you'd proba ly have to maintain an explicit "allow list" for any executables that you are OK running on your machine, and make sure that you don't accept any updates without explicitly checking the source yourself.

This is an intended feature of EFI/Windows, used to implement device drivers and theft protection.

So short of "don't use EFI" or "don't use Windows", there's not much you can do. There shouldn't be an easy way to disable this, as it'll brick devices when it shouldn't (missing drivers), or doesn't brick devices when it should (bypassing theft protection).

Not using the built-in networking hardware would probably help.

I add an Intel ethernet card to systems that I build as they will offload more work than the typical Realtek controller on a motherboard.