That sucks. I much preferred the drivers Windows automatically finds over navigating shitty vendor websites that break their links every other year and sometimes just take down all drivers for some of their product.<p>It also takes away some of the power Microsoft had over hardware manufacturers regarding driver quality; the WHQL program has only improved driver quality in my experience. Of course companies like NVIDIA encourage you to use their website version that doesn't need to pass all the quality checks because it's faster, preferably by making you sign up and letting them track what you do on your computer with some of their spyware, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Microsoft-sanctioned drivers are usually much more reliable and secure than random downloads a vendor decides to throw on their website.<p>It also makes a lot of older hardware useless. Microsoft's database contains many more drivers for less common, cheaper brands than vendors' websites, especially when the devices in question is older than three years and they'd much rather have you buy a new laptop than give you a driver for the motherboard.<p>I too have been bitten by the random software popup when plugging in a "gaming" mouse from Logitech, but I think it's wrong to blame Microsoft for the shitty software their vendors throw online. Microsoft judges drivers on stability and code quality rather than weird features like side programs, so if Logitech asserts that their customers want to use the program to use all the drivers' features, then who are they to object?
It appears most people here have't read the article. Unlike what the title states, Windows is not losing the ability to automatically find drivers. Take note of this bit:<p>> <i>The option to manually browse your PC for a driver is still present. You can also still update your drivers via Windows Update. The update only prevents the Device Manager from using the internet to update your drivers.</i>
Every time when I clicked Automatic Search it searched for ages and found nothing. I knew something was wrong with it.<p>It is mind boggling that Microsoft after all the years with dealing with the OS couldn't make it work.
Actually, starting with Windows 10 Release 2004, all device manufacturers will be able to mark driver updates as automatic, while optional driver updates will appear within an "Optional updates" area of Windows Update. This obsoletes the tedious search for driver updates within Device Manager.<p>Source: <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/hardware-dev-center/shipping-label-changes-and-manual-drivers/bc-p/1183469" rel="nofollow">https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/hardware-dev-center/s...</a>
Driver search seems like a relatively simple collective action problem that the OS provider is well-positioned to solve. It seems like all that's necessary is to extract an identifier for the device and have a repository of (operating-system, identifier) -> driver that device manufacturers can upload to.<p>I guess it's the extras that kill things. Product differentiators like applets, software utility suites etc. probably make drivers less than simple modules, and more like installable software packages. It's in the OS vendor's interest to commoditize this and make devices generic, but not in the device manufacturers' interests.
On the basis that 90% of the time when it did go off to the 'internet' (aka some Microsoft site) to find drivers it would spend hours doing it to only come back with nothing, it's been pretty useless for some time now.<p>One wonders if it's been broken for ages, and MS have finally decided to put it out of it's misery.
I really liked the feature,
Once on my win7, I installed a cheap plug-n-play network card with realtech microcontroller.
Assuming,it will work outof box. It didn't.
Then I just used my mobile for usb tethering, quickly launch the automatic search from settings and thats all. It found the needed drivers automatically.
Might be a good thing - once to my horror it just installed some manufacturer crapware when I plugged in a new mouse, and it did so without asking for permission. The software was the type of thing that makes you sign up for an account so you can adjust DPI and make it do weird things with colours. This was a few years back and hopefully this change means the end of stuff like that.<p>I think when working with a piece of hardware that requires a specific driver the user is best placed to go to the manufacturer website and download it.
This feature has sucked for a long time, and it’s past time that they got rid of it. It rarely works and, as the article notes, it offers a misleading message when no updates are found. Good riddance.
The only downside to this that's springing to mind, is when you plug in older hardware.<p>Sometimes manufacturers go out of business or no longer provide downloads for older models.
What an awful clickbait title. Can this be changed? It's totally misleading and lacks the important information that this only applies to the Device Manager. Automatic Driver Search through WU, of course, hasn't been removed. That would be crazy.