How to handle BSOD by driver on auto update?

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I would love to present a solution to my friend, when he’s back from holidays, so…

He’s using Win 10 Home, everything’s installed and maintained through Microsoft’s autoupdate, and it’s been running without problems until latest updates. The BSOD error code says wi-fi gear…

How can he roll back to previous good driver without Win 10 autoupdate just re-installing the new, flawed one?

How would you handle this scenario?

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This winsupersite.com article discusses how to set WinX for Never Install Driver Software from Windows Update. Hope it is still relevant 🙂

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Elly, Jan K.

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I’ve sent him the link and will report back.

Last night I concluded he and I are dinosaurs with the old outdated mindsets, that we have hardware, we run an OS on and I kinda had decided, that he should update his router to a “win 10 one”, if he would continue the Microsoft way.

And he should prepare to upgrade his pc as well in near future… it has more power than he needs, but the OS will probably one day report, the hardware is no longer compatible?

Thanks for your excellent services to this site!

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Kirsty

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Based on re-reading the advices from our “Win 10 guru”, ch100 (thanks!), I’ve come to the conclusion, that it actually may be better for my friend in the long run to upgrade to a newer, “win10 compatible” router…

Can’t believe it 😀 but it does make sense as my friend has been in group A from day one and hasn’t got the skills or interest to sort out what and when to update. So I’ll tell him to choose between the risk of blocking driver updates or upgrade eqipment.

Thanks for listening!

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ch100

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Thanks for reporting back @jan-k – hope that works out well for your friend 🙂

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Jan K., ch100, Alice

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@ Jan K

Common sense says that the 2017-released Win 10 Version 1703 is often not compatible with devices that are about 10 years old or older.
… Similarly, 10 year old analog CRT TVs cannot be used to receive today’s digital TV broadcasts (unless an adapter is used) and 10 years old 2G feature or non-smartphones can no longer be used today in most technology-advanced countries.

IOW, users intending to adopt today’s technology should not be using 10 years old devices, ie they should buy modern or new devices. 10 yo devices should stick with their 10 yo technology, eg millions of users are still running 2001-released Win XP computers today and they cannot be upgraded/updated to the 2013-released Win 8.1 or the 2015-released Win 10.

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I am not a “guru” 🙂
And I have never mentioned a router in our discussions here about Windows.
A router is a network device.
But I insist that the drivers and in particular those for Windows 10 should be installed primarily from Windows Update if they are offered. Certainly there may be buggy releases, but this applies to all Windows updates and are not more relevant to drivers than anything else.
There are known attacks against drivers which have been documented and there are certain levels under which Microsoft pushes updates for drivers, pretty much like for any other updates.
In summary, if not required for security or missing for a specific release, driver updates are not pushed as mandatory just for upgrading to the latest version. Otherwise, they are.

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Jan K., Alice

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The “guru” twist was my idea 😀 and as I’ve said before, I do respect your knowledge and am thankful for your sharing with us.

We may not agree on everything, but I think you’re right about a certain group of users should “surrender” to Microsoft’s new WaaS approach. Blocking things will probably cause more problems further down the road for them than not blocking…

I’m aware you haven’t mentioned routers directly, but since my buddy’s problem is driver related anyway, I concluded non-blocking would be right for him. A new router doesn’t really cost much and will probably solve his current situation…

He’s back home tomorrow and I’ll see him monday.

Thanks again!

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ch100

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Jan K. wrote:

…but I think you’re right about a certain group of users should “surrender” to Microsoft’s new WaaS approach. Blocking things will probably cause more problems further down the road for them than not blocking…

I’ll share a secret with you. While not mentioning here names, there are few of us Woody’s MVPs who share the same feeling, although others support, with huge personal effort, alternative methods of updating as well.
And I am sure Woody thinks the same, although not explicitly. Just read this recent ComputerWorld article and make up your own mind 😀
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3213929/microsoft-windows/the-case-against-windows-automatic-update.html

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Jan K.

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In the past using WU to update drivers was not a good idea. The drivers were always older and out of date. With Windows 10 Microsoft has embarked on an effort to get OEMs to supply updated drivers suitable for distribution via WU. Over some period of time Microsoft wants WU to be the place to get drivers. They also realize it will take quite a while to break the user habit of going to an OEM site for a driver update. We are in the middle of the transition now. I agree with ch100 if a driver is offered through WU the user should install it.

--Joe

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ch100

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Microsoft is terrible at guessing whether you have retail gear or custom OEM embedded gear. A generic video driver for a dual (high/low end) video driver in a laptop usually disables either the low power card or the high power card (breaking dynamic switching).

On an AIO computer is may disable video output (I see that one enough). Revert to correct driver, get online, auto-install microsoft driver, loose video (again).

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I have never claimed that every driver which Microsoft provides is good or optimal. I only claimed that if a Microsoft driver matches the hardware ID better than the generic one and this is the case in most situations, then the driver matching the hardware ID should be installed.
First choice still remains the manufacturer’s driver, but sometimes there is no alternative for hardware which the manufacturer does not support on newer operating systems. This makes perfect sense from a business perspective. The OEM manufacturer tries to sell new hardware and is not interested in developing new drivers for free while not selling their newer stuff, while Microsoft tries to sell new operating systems for any platform they find suitable and for them developing/adapting drivers is part of their effort.

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Ha! He and girlfriend took a week in Berlin!

But just to “close the case”, he’s not happy why a perfectly fine working wi-fi transmitter should give him problems because of a Microsoft update… the BSOD seems to appear, when he’s streaming netflix… I could only mumble something like new protocols, intense traffic and what not and since the only Linksys driver he can find is from 2007 (…) he kinda agreed, it’s probably time to upgrade hardware.

As I left, I mentioned that Microsoft probably one day in the near future may tell him, that his pc is no longer up to date and no longer will receive any further updates. His miffed look made me leave in a hurry… 😀

Thanks for the feedbacks!

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ch100

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Very last words on this adventure. Promise!

Went by yesterday for a free cup of coffee and asked about his new hardware… not surprised, he hadn’t bought a new wi-fi card.

“It only blue screened once a day and then re-booted itself…” and when asked about the latest updates: “Got some a couple of days ago. That disabled and removed wi-fi connection with a loss of all wi-fi drivers. Re-installed them manually and haven’t had any BSOD since then”..

So… either Microsoft’s telemetry is actually working – or two “bad” patches made a “relatively good” one?

The lesson? I really don’t know.

Btw. his Win 10 looks and runs annoyingly good and I’m actually tempted to “upgrade”, but will wait to at least June next year…

Thanks for listening! 😀

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ch100

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Jan K. wrote:

Thanks for listening!

… and thank you for starting an interesting thread in which posters provided useful input and not the regular rants which I see most of the time as spam (but it is not my forum). 🙂

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