
Microsoft Kills Windows 10's Automatic Driver Search - sharjeelsayed
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/microsoft-kills-windows-10-driver-search/
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jeroenhd
That sucks. I much preferred the drivers Windows automatically finds over
navigating shitty vendor websites that break their links every other year and
sometimes just take down all drivers for some of their product.

It also takes away some of the power Microsoft had over hardware manufacturers
regarding driver quality; the WHQL program has only improved driver quality in
my experience. Of course companies like NVIDIA encourage you to use their
website version that doesn't need to pass all the quality checks because it's
faster, preferably by making you sign up and letting them track what you do on
your computer with some of their spyware, but that doesn't take away from the
fact that Microsoft-sanctioned drivers are usually much more reliable and
secure than random downloads a vendor decides to throw on their website.

It also makes a lot of older hardware useless. Microsoft's database contains
many more drivers for less common, cheaper brands than vendors' websites,
especially when the devices in question is older than three years and they'd
much rather have you buy a new laptop than give you a driver for the
motherboard.

I too have been bitten by the random software popup when plugging in a
"gaming" mouse from Logitech, but I think it's wrong to blame Microsoft for
the shitty software their vendors throw online. Microsoft judges drivers on
stability and code quality rather than weird features like side programs, so
if Logitech asserts that their customers want to use the program to use all
the drivers' features, then who are they to object?

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raxxorrax
It would be so easy to implement as switch for something like this. It is like
Microsoft really tries to not give users a choice these days.

~~~
fr2null
I think part of this is because Microsoft already has mountains of barely used
legacy code they need to support. With every choice they remove, they can
remove some of it, or at least make sure it doesn't grow.

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mehrdadn
It appears most people here have't read the article. Unlike what the title
states, Windows is not losing the ability to automatically find drivers. Take
note of this bit:

> _The option to manually browse your PC for a driver is still present. You
> can also still update your drivers via Windows Update. The update only
> prevents the Device Manager from using the internet to update your drivers._

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mrkramer
Every time when I clicked Automatic Search it searched for ages and found
nothing. I knew something was wrong with it.

It is mind boggling that Microsoft after all the years with dealing with the
OS couldn't make it work.

~~~
xnyan
It is mind boggling how smart and clear thinking people want so badly to dump
on Microsoft, to the degree that it blinds them to objective reality. Auto
driver update functionally is now in windows update and it works well. This is
mentioned in the article. They are killing this because it's broken and they
don't need it.

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currysausage
Actually, starting with Windows 10 Release 2004, all device manufacturers will
be able to mark driver updates as automatic, while optional driver updates
will appear within an "Optional updates" area of Windows Update. This
obsoletes the tedious search for driver updates within Device Manager.

Source: [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/hardware-dev-
center/s...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/hardware-dev-
center/shipping-label-changes-and-manual-drivers/bc-p/1183469)

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barrkel
Driver search seems like a relatively simple collective action problem that
the OS provider is well-positioned to solve. It seems like all that's
necessary is to extract an identifier for the device and have a repository of
(operating-system, identifier) -> driver that device manufacturers can upload
to.

I guess it's the extras that kill things. Product differentiators like
applets, software utility suites etc. probably make drivers less than simple
modules, and more like installable software packages. It's in the OS vendor's
interest to commoditize this and make devices generic, but not in the device
manufacturers' interests.

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swiley
This is essentially what Linux does. The “driver repository” is just the
kernel source.

~~~
brian_herman__
Only for the FOSS drivers. Which often suck.

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swiley
Almost all the drivers on Linux are FOSS. I’ve never owned a device that needs
closed drivers (other than phones and dear god do those drivers suck balls)
but I’ve heard some pretty bad things from friends and people on the internet
who have had to tolerate closed GPU drivers.

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Jaruzel
On the basis that 90% of the time when it did go off to the 'internet' (aka
some Microsoft site) to find drivers it would spend hours doing it to only
come back with nothing, it's been pretty useless for some time now.

One wonders if it's been broken for ages, and MS have finally decided to put
it out of it's misery.

~~~
barrkel
Occasionally Windows 10 Update will bump my graphics card driver and I'll need
to go off to nVidia and get the proper latest version which isn't just a bare
bones driver.

When it works, it's not even necessarily what you want.

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jituc
I really liked the feature, Once on my win7, I installed a cheap plug-n-play
network card with realtech microcontroller. Assuming,it will work outof box.
It didn't. Then I just used my mobile for usb tethering, quickly launch the
automatic search from settings and thats all. It found the needed drivers
automatically.

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gtsteve
Might be a good thing - once to my horror it just installed some manufacturer
crapware when I plugged in a new mouse, and it did so without asking for
permission. The software was the type of thing that makes you sign up for an
account so you can adjust DPI and make it do weird things with colours. This
was a few years back and hopefully this change means the end of stuff like
that.

I think when working with a piece of hardware that requires a specific driver
the user is best placed to go to the manufacturer website and download it.

~~~
TheHypnotist
Back before Nvidia had automatic detection I'm pretty sure I installed the
wrong driver and somehow caused some major issues with my PC. This was well
over a decade ago.

Now I have some application of theirs sitting in my system tray and it makes
life much easier.

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D13Fd
This feature has sucked for a long time, and it’s past time that they got rid
of it. It rarely works and, as the article notes, it offers a misleading
message when no updates are found. Good riddance.

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justinclift
The only downside to this that's springing to mind, is when you plug in older
hardware.

Sometimes manufacturers go out of business or no longer provide downloads for
older models.

~~~
cm2187
Or provide drivers only on a disc...

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anthk
Windows 7-10 users may like SDI Tool Origin. It's libre software and it
automatically fetches what you need.

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Voliokis
What an awful clickbait title. Can this be changed? It's totally misleading
and lacks the important information that this only applies to the Device
Manager. Automatic Driver Search through WU, of course, hasn't been removed.
That would be crazy.

