Mysterious updates

[berniec]

With the warning this morning that yesterday was patch tuesday, I ran wushowhide to block the updates.  First off, I haven’t received the December updates yet.  No problem there — I’ll just keep checking.  BUT  the very strange thing is that there were a *bunch* of _other_ updates and I don’t know how/why MS is sending them to me.

• dell firmware
• intel system 10.1.1.38
• intel system 10.1.1.38 [second time!]
• samsung modem
• samsung usb
• samsung androidusbdeviceclass
• samsung androidusedeviceclass [different version]
• samsung usb [different version]

Why are those there?  I was pretty sure I had update set NOT to update drivers.  [but I don’t remember where that was.

and  I immediately ran the “dell update” checker and it said that i’m up to date so they idea of MS sending me [for example] firmware when Dell thinks I’m OK is pretty strange.  I guess I can leave them “hidden” forever but it’s scary that MS tried to push those updates on me

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[PKCano]

Yesterday (Dec 1, 2020) was NOT Patch Tuesday. Patch Tuesday is the 2nd Tuesday of the month, which will be Dec 8, 2020. The December updates haven’t been released yet – wait a week. 🙂

The patches you list are drivers. We do not recommend installing drivers through Windows Update and would suggest you hide all of them (and keep them hidden).

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[berniec]

Sorry – I guess I misunderstood the devcon 2 I got this morning.

and that’s what I thought [that those were drivers].  But this is the very *first* time I’ve ever seen drivers show up in my windows-update so I wonder what happened.  And I can see why you recommend NOT taking drivers from MS: Dell thinks all my drivers are up to date.

I guess those drivers will be stuck in the “hidden” list forever, yes?

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[PKCano]

DEVCON-2 means DO NOT update. DEVCON-3 (or greater) is the go-ahead.

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[Bundaburra]

You don’t say what version of Windows you have, or whether Home or Pro – always useful information.  If you have a Pro version, you can use Group Policy to easily control whether Windows Update will offer you driver updates.  Enter “gpedit” (without the quotes) into the run box, then select Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Windows Update.  Look for the setting called “Do not include drivers with Windows Updates”, and enable it.  You may need to run gpedit as administrator.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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[anonymous]

nope, these updates arent “mysterious” at all, everyone with Windows 10 home/pro gets them. Not only that, they are pretty much self explanatory by their nomenclature :)/

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[berniec]

So what, then, does enabling “do not install drivers” do?

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[PKCano]

Exactly what it says – it prevents drivers installing in Windows Update.

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[berniec]

So that means that if I hadn’t hidden them, they wouldn’t have installed?  That’s comforting and if true I can un-hide them and, I expect, have them not-install and go away.  That’s a scary experiment to try, but if you think it’ll work I’ll give it a shot [Saturday morning is my usual time for those kinds of antics: I do incrementals each day but I do a full backup each saturday morning,  so it’d be relatively easy to recover [if the scary “firmware” update doens’t brick my system :o)]

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[PKCano]

You have to set the Group Policy to not include drivers in Windows Update first (see @Bundaburra ‘s post above). Reboot. Unhide one of them and wait for Windows Update to scan on it’s own (may be a while). Be sure you have the “2” set Group Policy also.

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[berniec]

I’ve had the “don’t download drivers” set from the day I first got win10, so no need to reboot.  And ‘2’ is what I have.

I think I understand the “safe” thing you’re suggesting: I can unhide something that won’t be really dangerous [like the samsung modem one] and then wait for it to show up as one of the pending updates.   I’m not sure what’ll happen but since I can right-then exit windows update wushowhide to re-hide the driver I should be safe.

How would I know if the driver had truly vanished rather than just not yet having gotten caught in a scan.   I think my system scans every day [because I get pretty regular defender updates].   Would getting a defender update or two with no sign of the samsung driver likely mean that it is gone?

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[PKCano]

After you unhide one, if the scan date changes and the driver doesn’t show up in the Update queue, then it’s working.

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[DriftyDonN]

msft WU will offer offer up unknown Intel “things” with NO explanation. Then you have to use your search engine of choice to try and find out what they are. I have drivers blocked thru GP edit but these intel offerings are rampant! I know I recently found an Intel Microcode inastalled in July that I do not know how it got there! I uninstalled it BUT it still shows in update history( but not uninstall updates) so I assume it’s gone. I also suppose microcode is not considered a driver, so it got thru. Mysterious offerings from Intel are definitely a problem due to lack of description- updates for chipset? microcode? The shadow knows!!

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[anonymous]

If you or a guest have connected a Samsung phone to your computer those devices are remembered so the attempt to update a driver can be valid. Uninstalling a device in Device Manager may stop these from appearing again in a list of updates. Plenty of times it could be a goof by Microsoft, or offering older but valid drivers.

(For somebody with knowledge: Does Microsoft update certificates of older drivers?)
(The public needs a Windows Driver Frequently Asked Question explainer.)

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[berniec]

PKCano wrote:

Exactly what it says – it prevents drivers installing in Windows Update.

I’ll be 🙂 — you are exactly correct!!   I ‘show’ed one of the driver updates and it has now been two windows-defender updates later and it hasn’t appeared.   My guess: windows update knows that I’m not taking driver updates, but whshowhide doesn’t, so I’m guessing they were actually there all along and , just as the should be, were ignored.   It doesn’t hurt anything to leave them hidden, but I’m ‘show’ them just to make them go away…  THANKS!

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