A6150 AC1200 WiFi USB driver causing immediate BSOD on clean install of Win10 or Win11

Hello, I'm finishing up a PC build that I started about 4 years ago. The SuperMicro X10SLQ motherboard doesn't have Centrino or other built-in wireless so I went to Best Buy looking for a PCI-E WiFi card. All they had were USB WiFi adapters; I chose the Netgear AC1200 WiFi USB Adapter USB2.0 Dual Band Model A6150 because the box said it was compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.

I partitioned and formatted a hard drive and did a clean install of Windows 10. When I logged in for the first time, I noticed that Windows didn't have built-in drivers for the A6150 so I downloaded the newest drivers called A6150 Windows Standalone V1.0.0.5 using another computer, transferred them, installed them, and confirmed that the Netgear adapter was now in the Network adapters section of Device Manager. I connected to the hotel's open WiFi and made sure I could access a few random websites, but within the first 30 seconds, the computer crashed with Stop Code PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA. When I tried rebooting a few times, the computer crashed either within a minute of logging in, or before I even had a chance to log in if I typed slowly or typed my password wrong. I couldn't figure out how to access Safe Mode (apparently, the F8 key doesn't work anymore?).

At first, I didn't realize the BSOD was from the Netgear adapter and thought my RAM was defective (as I had already proven the other 8 GB stick of the Mushkin DDR3-L pair to be defective, 4 years ago). However, I booted from a MemTest USB stick, ran 4 iterations of tests, and after 2 or 3 hours, the results came back, zero errors, RAM passed 100%.

Next I suspected NTFS corruption, so I used DiskPart to clean, convert to GPT, partition, and format a separate SSD, installed that SSD on another SATA port using another SATA cable, did a clean install of Windows 10 on that SSD, installed the Netgear A6150 ver 1.0.0.5 drivers, and saw the same BSOD, repeatedly, just as before. Interestingly, the BSODs didn't have a "What failed" line pointing to the cause; they only had the Stop Code.

Finally, narrowing down the cause to the Netgear drivers, I once again used DiskPart to clean, convert to GPT, partition, format, and install Windows on the hard drive, and Linux Mint Cinnamon on the SSD. This time, I installed Windows 11 instead of Windows 10, and created a Restore Point prior to installing the Netgear drivers. The results were the same crashes on Windows 11 with Stop Code PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA, and stable, flawless WiFi in Linux Mint, which automatically detected and installed drivers for the Netgear adapter. I connected the Mint installation to YouTube and let it run for several hours on autoplay, and everything worked fine.

The workaround was as follows. Firstly, I returned the Windows 11 to the Restore Point and disabled the Netgear adapter in Device Manager. Secondly (not having as much trust in the Netgear brand after this experience), I ordered a TP-Link WiFi 6 PCIe WiFi card on Amazon Prime to arrive at my ex-girlfriend's house next day. To the best of my knowledge, this TP-Link card only works on Windows 10 and 11. I will create a dual boot system with two separate drives. The first drive will use Windows 10 or 11 with the TP-Link card (and the Netgear adapter permanently disabled), and the second drive will use Mint with the Netgear adapter. This should ensure that, unless our 2 year old daughter spills juice directly on the computer, my ex-girlfriend will always have a backup method to access her files and connect to the internet if Windows ever has a serious glitch.

One question for the community: Is there a way to prevent Windows from ever attempting to "fix" the problem with the disabled Netgear and in doing so, installing the defective drivers? Whether this problem is limited to my specific hardware, or is more widespread, is unclear to me. Has anyone else experienced BSODs on clean installs of Windows 10 or 11 immediately after installing the newest A6150 drivers? If so, what was your solution or workaround?

I looked into updating the firmware on the Netgear adapter. The documentation's logic is circular. The release notes say to read the instructions in the User Manual, which says to go to the release notes. As such, I have to assume that installing the drivers also updates the adapter's firmware.

Could downloading and installing all the other drivers (for the various yellow triangles with exclamation points in Device Manager), before installing the Netgear 1.0.0.5 drivers, fix the problem? Due to time constraints, I didn't try this as a possible workaround but wondering if the graphics, LAN, or chipset drivers might have any effect or interplay with the Netgear drivers.