Windows 10 Forced Updates Already Causing Issues

Windows 10 hasn’t even been released to the general public yet and there is already a major problem. The cause of this problem was Windows 10 insisting that EVERY update is mandatory, including device drivers (which were optional in Windows 7 and Windows 8). In this case it users of dual monitors with certain Nvidia graphic cards.

The flaw revolves around Nvidia graphics cards with users taking to Nvidia’s forums to report Windows Update is automatically installing new drivers which break multimonitor setups, SLI (dual card) configurations and can even stop PCs booting entirely which pushes Windows 10 into its emergency recovery mode.

Nvidia like other video card makers such AMD have their own proprietary software for driver management. In this case there is a version of the Nvidia Driver  on Windows Update which breaks the SLI configuration and a version through Nvidia Geforce Experience which is newer and does not cause this problem. However, the driver through Windows Update has a higher version number than that on Geforce. This is creating a vicious circle as the Geforce software ‘downgrades’ to the driver it has, but then Windows Update detects an out-of-date drive and updates again to the broken driver.

The problem is compounded by the fact that Windows Update doesn’t actually reveal driver version numbers prior to install or warn the user in advance so pinpointing something that has suddenly caused problems can be hard to identify.

I learned long ago NEVER let Microsoft handle your device driver updates. ALWAYS get them directly from the manufacturer (if possible) as many times Microsoft will try to install out-dated or the dreaded ‘Generic Driver’. With that being said, Microsoft should have left device drivers as optional thus avoiding this whole mess. But, that would be too easy and logical of a thing for Microsoft “The company that taught users to turn off their computers by pressing a button marked start” to do.

via Forbes

3 Trackbacks & Pingbacks

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