Microsoft posts official fixes for the bad HP keyboard driver bluescreen, and the bad Intel audio driver

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I don’t know why anybody would trust Microsoft to push drivers onto their machines. At least this time they’ve ‘fessed up and provided a couple of fix
[See the full post at: Microsoft posts official fixes for the bad HP keyboard driver bluescreen, and the bad Intel audio driver]

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Elly, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Microfix

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I just did turn off driver updates through WU in group policy. It’s located in the same part of group policy editor as other WU settings. I hope this will shut down MS in trying to update all my drivers for me.

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Older versions of Windows 10 were very lax about obeying the GPO settings. I tried to block a Synaptics touchpad driver that was causing my left button to double-click instead of single click. But 1607 eventually reinstalled it anyway, despite being hidden with wushowhide and having the GPO enabled. However, 1809 seems to be OK with it, have had no issues yet.

I’d very much be in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category when it comes to drivers.

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Microsoft started pushing out drivers because many did not keep them updated others. Either because they uninstalled the PC makers update tool or they simply did not know how to download and install them. Microsoft doesn’t claim they deliver most recent drivers. Only that they are certified by Microsoft with Windows. Would I trust Microsoft to install the correct ones? Not when they can’t even keep their own upgrades and updates up to par.

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IIRC didn’t some HP keyboard drivers record keystrokes at some point?
EDIT: it would seem so: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/hp-laptops-covert-log-every-keystroke-researchers-warn/
out of the frying pan..into the fire

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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While I’ve seen a bunch of different “how to” sites that say to “always make sure you have the newest drivers,” it’s not always the case that newer is better.  There is a vast array of hardware out there, and while the OEMs that write the drivers may intend for them to be the best available for all the devices that driver is supposed to cover, it often doesn’t work out that way.  The user community will often find workarounds for various issues by installing a specific older driver, and often this results in a well-working system when the newest driver would not have.   Sometimes it’s even necessary to edit the .inf file before installing the driver for various reasons, and that means having to restart Windows with driver signature enforcement disabled before installing the driver.  Once you get everything working just right, the last thing you want is for anything to come along and upset the balance.

There have been reports of Windows 10 removing video drivers (I think it was nVidia, but don’t quote me on that) with all the extra stuff (if it was nVidia, they’d be things like nVidia control panel, nVidia Experience, etc.) and replacing the whole thing with the newer driver… just the driver, with all of the other stuff either removed or not compatible with the new version.

It’s generally recommended to stay away from those driver downloader and installer programs you see out there across the web.  There are a ton of them, and I would not be surprised if some were infected with malware.  Even if they are legitimately what they say they are, they’ve been reported to cause some problems by installing inappropriate drivers and needlessly replacing drivers that are working fine.   That sounds a lot like what we’ve been talking about here recently, only it’s Windows itself doing it.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Elly, woody, Microfix

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In W7/ 8.1 I like to decompress drivers (where possible) then, I use device manager to update the device driver in question. In doing so, I avoid unnecessary bloat that comes with the driver package.
It takes a bit longer but, at least I know exactly what is on the system, no more and no less. YMMV
Also keeps the uninstall list to a minimum.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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