Notebook Audio

I tried to setup my system with an external mic in the jack on the left side of the omen keyboard.   The only device available in the sound settings was the mic array (realtek).  This driver worked somewhat but collects sound from both the mic jack and the builtin mic on the laptop itself.

Background

After much installing and deinstalling and reinstalling, I came to the following conclusions.

The current realtek driver overrides and blocks use of the microphone device.

The current realtek driver will reinstall automatically unless automatic updates are turned off.

Uninstalling the realtek driver and removing the driver files will remove the realtek devices (both mic and speaker)

but will allow the microsoft High definition audio device to present and work.

I used the omen audio drivers for my device from the HP support site.

Questions:

Is there a better solution to getting the external mic input to work?

Are there newer/better realtek drivers that don't have this problem?

Is there a way to remove the realtek devices and drivers so that the system does not try to reinstall them?

I would like to be able to turn the automatic updates back on, and I fear that if I leave it off, a future update will turn it back on and I'll be stuck trying to figure out again why my mic isn't working correctly.