[Pseudo-rant] Windows Update will keep your drivers updated (or not)

Good day.

Before anyone tell me the best aproach for updating drivers is to go to manufacturer's page, which is perfectly fine on most cases, but not entirely true on systems that "can" run Windows 11 but aren't supported on manufacturer's page beyond windows 10 (your mileage may vary), I have noticed that Windows install a lot of very old drivers upon clean installing. Those drivers seem to never get updated even if you copy the hardware id and paste it into the microsoft catalog (catalog.update.microsoft.com). I have downloaded newer and working versions from there, for several device drivers. I have noticed that with MS built-in drivers at installation my current intel board shuts down every now and then; but it's fine with updated drivers. Why WU don't give you the option to update those drivers if they seem to work just fine?

First of all, always prefer official OEM drivers if available. They are more compatible, have better performance and gives you access to all device features, unlike WU drivers which are basic functionality. If there is no Windows 10/11 driver (they are the same), use Windows 8/8.1 64-bit or 7 64-bit. Even Vista 64-bit for very old hardware works, but the newer the better. The exception is Intel graphics drivers for Windows 7 which are locked by Intel to refuse installing on higher Windows versions. If there is a newer WU driver, but you rather keep your older official OEM driver, you can block the respective update using the Microsoft Windows Update Show/Hide Tool or the Windows Automatic Updates Manager (WAU Manager), both available from Major Geeks.

I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

spapakons said:

First of all, always prefer official OEM drivers if available.

Click to expand...

I totally agree. However, over the last couple of weeks, I've received quite a lot of Intel driver updates, via Windows Update, relating specifically to my device, that I wouldn't necessarily have received directly (?) from Dell / Intel.

These are usually Intel chipset drivers. If you install the latest Intel chipset driver (that supports your own chipset) they should be installed. However, Intel has disappeared almost all chipset drivers from their site, except the latest that support only newest chipset. Your best bet is to download it from the motherboard (computer) manufacturer or just let Windows Update install them. Usually you won't notice any difference if you don't install them. Rarely they provide new features. That said, one of these drivers might be an UEFI firmware (aka BIOS) update. Again, I would rather download it directly from the manufacturer. Recently I was upgrading Windows on my wife's HP laptop and tried to upgrade the UEFI firmware via Windows Update. For some unknown reason it failed at the last stage, but fortunately the old version was restored automatically and the laptop wasn't damaged. I then downloaded the same update directly from HP and it was installed successfully.