Driver Management: What does Microsoft recommend?

[Eric Ohlin]

We're looking forward to Windows 10 20H2; however, SafeGuard IDs hold up most of our fleet. The blocks are related to outdated drivers on Windows 10 clients. What does Microsoft recommend to combat this? We have approximately 25-30 different models in our environment, and as you know, many drivers are designed for a specific windows 10 feature update version.

To clarify: I'm not asking about how to update or manage drivers with OSD/MDT during the OS deployment phase. I'm inquiring how to keep our existing 16,000 clients running on laptop manufacturers' latest driver versions. Sure, we could use the update tool provided by each manufacturer and point clients to the cloud. This approach develops overhead as we introduce additional manufacturers into the environment and reduces our control over which drivers are installed. The local repository option (vs. manufacturer cloud) is challenging, with employees working from home and VPN resources constrained.

What do the Microsoft IT pros use? How does Microsoft keep their clients updated in this area?

Thank you,

Eric O

[#2]

Right now, we strongly recommend customers leverage Update Compliance in regards to gaining insights into existing Safeguard Holds. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/access-safeguard-hold-details-with-update...

[#3]

@Eric Ohlin was just looking through the CSEO (MS IT) Windows 10 deployment deck and do not see any references to their approach to managing this age old challenge for most IT Pro's.  Let me reach out to them and get you the answer to how we manage these internally.  Stay tuned!

[#4]

@Dave_Backman @Steve Thomas (GLADIATOR) 

Thank you both for the response. I'm familiar with Update Compliance and Safeguard Holds. We're aware of which holds are applied to us (mostly because of outdated drivers.) My question is how to best resolve these holds, which will require a solution to my original question. Enterprises are in need of a method to update aging drivers across large fleets with many models of clients.

I see that @Susan Bradley asked a similar question in regards to the Conexant driver. We're in the same boat. We have 1000's of client's on old driver versions, they can't upgrade to 20H2 and time is running out on 1809. 

Thank you, 

Eric O

[#5]

@Eric Ohlin  What is the vendor?  I used to never use the HP support assistant to handle bios/driver updates and now it's standard on all of my builds to ensure that these drivers stay up to date.  I've seen others use chocolatey to push out driver update.

[#6]

@Susan Bradley 

We have a mix of Lenovo and HP. The tools provided by each vendor are okay but don't offer much flexibility. Given that Microsoft is applying holds to prevent companies from upgrading to Windows 10 versions (because of drivers), I'd love to hear Microsoft's recommendation on how to approach this challenge and gain insight into how their internal teams solve this. 

[#7]

Hey @Dave_Backman , 

Checking in to see if you were able to gather any information. Thanks!

Kindest Regards, 

Eric O