One of the top pieces of customer feedback in the graphics driver area is clear: “Windows Update downgrades my drivers.” Today, we are announcing a policy change to how display drivers are published through Windows Update — allowing 2-Part HWID + Computer Hardware ID (CHID) targeting for new devices. This change gives customers more control over their display driver of choice while preserving OEM control over the devices they ship.
↫ Garrettd at Microsoft’s Hardware Dev Center
Windows Update randomly downgrading your graphics drivers seems to be a common enough occurrence that its supposed fix deserves its own feature announcement and blog post. This is a real operating system that runs on most of the world’s PCs.
Yes, it’s actually common and frustrating. For a while, I ran Windows on my personal laptop before eventually removing it. It kept downgrading my AMD integrated graphics drivers without warning. I have the same CPU and integrated GPU on my company laptop, and the problem is still there. Windows used to have an external tool to block specific driver updates, but a few versions ago, it just stopped working.
Before doing any of these… they should fix the “trust” of people.
There is a legitimate backdoor in BitLocker: https://github.com/Nightmare-Eclipse/YellowKey/
I’m not sure this is entirely intentional though. The reason is, it only affects recent Windows releases, and older ones stay rock solid. My guess is either an AI slop, or a very lazy dev. Either case, not so good looking at all.
(Would still require booting from USB, so if you have secureboot + locked down devices it won’t affect you. Still a terrible thing to see)
See? This is why I recommend that people buy a Mac if they can afford a Mac.
This shouldn’t be a problem, for every hardware that has shipped since 2015, Windows should ship a bundled-in driver in the OS that is immutable (Windows changes every 6 months now anyway, it’s not like Windows XP that that has to work with hardware 6 years after it was released), and if that means not having 100 different WiFi chips (each with its own proprietary interface) and standardizing on whatever open interface Qualcomm Atheros chips offer, so be it.
As an aside, I had the other problem: Windows UPGRADING my GPU drivers to ones without 3D Vision, so I just blocked new driver installs for the GPU using Group Policy Editor.
kurkosdr,
If they want one they can get one, but even before looking at prices there are other reasons to rule them out. There are objective cons from an upgradability and repairability standpoint, meanwhile there is obviously less support for hardware and software, which can be a deal breaker too. I realize we’re in the minority but for those who want to run linux apple hardware is actually quite spotty with hardware/drivers yet to be successfully reverse engineered. The newest m3-m5 generations aren’t even supported at all.
https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
The other thing that concerns me is apple’s regressions on things like sideloading.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6304352/apple-removes-ability-to-run-unsigned-apps-in-macos-15-1
The likely rebutal to this is to point out that the gate isn’t completely locked and owners can disable gatekeeper. However it does break functionality that owners would expect to work and the situation keeps slowly getting worse, which it speaks to apple’s ultimate mindset on marginalizing owner rights. Of course some people have no issue with tech companies take control away, but it still needs to be on the list of pros and cons.
And it’s not just apple, our freedoms continue being attacked broadly on multiple fronts. Google has plans to step up the battle against sideloaders on android later this year,
https://troypoint.com/google-confirms-android-sideloading-restrictions-for-2026/
As I see it, these trends left unchecked over the long term spell out a society that will loose all digital rights. Both the technology giants and governments are guilty of this and I think it behooves us to speak out and inform people about it. Sometimes there’s not much of a choice, which absolutely sucks. But at least with computers there are still viable choices and IMHO we should encourage people to become informed and if possible vote for freedom with their wallets. Every voice helps a little bit and we need all the help we can get.
I had similar issues with windows update replacing old working drivers with new drivers from the manufacturer that contain malware that intentionally disables the hardware as planned obsolescence. Although I think we may have spoken about this before.