14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is continuously looking into ways to improve the experience with Windows Update, and the next step for the company appears to be the driver department.
The company has revealed recently that Windows 10 version 2004 (and the new versions that would launch in the coming years) will change the way optional (also referred to as manual) driver updates are pushed via Windows Update.
“In the past, when a user connected a peripheral device (a web camera, for example) to their machine for the first time, and that device had a manual driver (formally known as an optional driver) available on Windows Update, the manual driver was automatically installed on the user's machine. The user had no control over the decision,” Microsoft explains.
So theoretically, when you connected a new device to your computer and no automatic driver updates existed, Windows 10 just downloaded the optional driver without asking you for consent.
Only available for Windows 10 version 2004 and newer
That’s changing with this new approach, as Microsoft wants to give users more control over what they install on their devices. The automatic driver updates won’t suffer any change, as they will continue to be installed via Windows Update when they are published by the manufacturer or when you connect the device.
On the other hand, users will now be allowed to choose if they want to install the optional driver updates, and if they do, they must do the whole thing manually.
The new approach will come into effect on November 5 and will only be available on Windows 10 version 2004 for now. At this point, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft plans to enable the change on the previous Windows 10 versions, so your best choice right now is to upgrade to version 2004 or to the recently-released October 2020 Update (version 20H2).