Microsoft is set to bid farewell to third-party printer drivers offered via Windows Update. This change, scheduled for a staggered rollout, will let printer
“With the release of Windows 10 21H2, Windows offers inbox support for Mopria compliant printer devices over network and USB interfaces via the Microsoft IPP Class Driver. This removes the need for print device manufacturers to provide their own installers, drivers, utilities, and so on. Device experience customization is now available via the Print Support Apps that are distributed and automatically installed via the Windows Store,” the company wrote.
Well, you could think of Microsoft as your distro. Generally, if they’re telling you to upgrade a driver, you should do it. At a minimum, everyone should be automatically installing security updates. This is one of the most important services an operating system vendor provides.
If you don’t trust them to do that or you don’t like their update frequency, maybe consider a different operating system. In the Linux world, we have some choices as far as release cadence and update policy. You can do rolling, 6 month, 2 year LTS, etc. Some are bleeding edge and others use “proven” software and remain very stable until the next major release.
Auto update is fine for home user and ensuring latest stuff, but corporate use you want updates tested and then released in a controlled manner, otherwise you chase technical issues that are hard to trace and resolve with everchanging code updates being injected
The thing is, on Linux you can see exactly what an update brings, and you can also block individual packages from updating. I doubt you’ll get the same courtesy with Windows updates, it’s all or nothing.
I haven’t used the more recent versions of Windows on a personal machine, but I know you at least used to be able to choose which updates you wanted to apply.
Control over individual updates was abandonded halfway through Windows 7, when they found out their algorithm for evaluating updates is exponential and has trouble finishing within 24 hours. So they moved to a linear sequence of all-or-nothing bundles and diffs.
They used to offer two tracks of those: everything and security-only. I don’t think they do that anymore either.
You can uninstall individual updates after the fact. Not sure this actually works to any useful degree.
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Well, you could think of Microsoft as your distro. Generally, if they’re telling you to upgrade a driver, you should do it. At a minimum, everyone should be automatically installing security updates. This is one of the most important services an operating system vendor provides.
If you don’t trust them to do that or you don’t like their update frequency, maybe consider a different operating system. In the Linux world, we have some choices as far as release cadence and update policy. You can do rolling, 6 month, 2 year LTS, etc. Some are bleeding edge and others use “proven” software and remain very stable until the next major release.
Auto update is fine for home user and ensuring latest stuff, but corporate use you want updates tested and then released in a controlled manner, otherwise you chase technical issues that are hard to trace and resolve with everchanging code updates being injected
Umm… you can do that with Windows in a corporate environment.
That was my point
The thing is, on Linux you can see exactly what an update brings, and you can also block individual packages from updating. I doubt you’ll get the same courtesy with Windows updates, it’s all or nothing.
I haven’t used the more recent versions of Windows on a personal machine, but I know you at least used to be able to choose which updates you wanted to apply.
Control over individual updates was abandonded halfway through Windows 7, when they found out their algorithm for evaluating updates is exponential and has trouble finishing within 24 hours. So they moved to a linear sequence of all-or-nothing bundles and diffs.
They used to offer two tracks of those: everything and security-only. I don’t think they do that anymore either.
You can uninstall individual updates after the fact. Not sure this actually works to any useful degree.