Windows 10 doesn't show updates of type Recommended or Optional

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(Apologies if this issue has been covered before at this site. I did search before posting.)

From https://superuser.com/questions/1140002/how-do-you-install-the-recommended-windows-updates-in-windows-10:

‘I can see from my antivirus software (ESET) that there are a number of available Windows Updates for drivers and hardware for my PC. In Windows 7 these were easy to install through Windows Update, but in Windows 10 the checkbox to “Include Recommended Updates” has been removed and none of the updates show up in Windows Update itself.

How can I install these updates?’

Some other references to the same issue:

https://www.mcbsys.com/blog/2016/08/windows-10-does-not-show-or-install-optional-updates/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/how-to-install-recommended-updates-in-windows-10/55fce0a4-45a3-4283-ab59-a9ed8b669f75

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/windows-10-not-downloading-recommended-updates/20cb7e7d-3347-4be2-b6a4-0390bf484263

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/windows-10-non-critical-updates/fd7cdb0b-362e-4a03-8809-ed994dc2c857

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My guess is that this behavior is by design so that some drivers are not updated through Windows Update.

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I addressed the drivers behaviour issue in Windows 10 in the past.
In the original 1507, it seemed that all drivers were pushed unconditionally. As this is a thing of the past, except for those few still running LTSB 1507, I have no way or interest in test that old scenario.
In the current implementations, I believe that drivers are pushed unconditionally only if:
– There is no existing driver for a particular piece of hardware.
– There are security issues with the existing driver in which case the driver becomes Important and not Optional in the old naming convention.
– A similar behaviour with the above may happen when a known Microsoft driver has functionality issues and a new Microsoft driver resolves them. Again this is the pattern of an Important update (Critical non-security in this case). This is the behaviour of some driver updates when new versions of Windows 10 are installed (upgrade in place).
– An administrator runs update drivers from Device Manager in which case any available driver is installed (Optional in the old naming convention?).

I believe that the Recommended category has been merged into the Critical Updates (Important non-security) category which is the normal updating behaviour in legacy Windows as well.

If you find a different behaviour for drivers, please let us know. I am very interested to have this understood well and brought under control in Windows 10 if this is needed. 🙂

1 user thanked author for this post.

MrBrian

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Relevant posts from another topic: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/windows-10-driver-management/#post-132175.

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It seems likely that Recommended updates are in fact installed automatically in Windows 10. I was wrong about this because I wrongly assumed that the third-party update scanner program from one of the links in the first post was using the same update categories that Windows Update uses.

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