Apr 28 2020 04:16 PM
In a large corporate environment, do you believe it is advisable to update the workstations drivers and bios before updating to new version of Windows 10? ie 1803 to 1909
Apr 28 2020 04:25 PM
Apr 28 2020 04:28 PM
In terms of security stance, it's a good idea to keep things like BIOS and drivers up to date - but from a continuous delivery / modern desktop management perspective it's a really good idea to split them out from the OS upgrades, and manage them more frequently.
Apr 28 2020 04:39 PM
@John_Dahl how are you rolling out feature updates? If you really need to install a driver during the feature update, you can use setup's /InstallDrivers command line option. Point it to a local path or UNC, and setup will go through the folders, look for the INF, and install the driver(s). It also works with setupconfig.ini.
That said, consider a general workflow to keep drivers current separate, before running setup. For the source OS, this will increase the likelihood that you don’t hit a setup block due to a driver. You can use the same workflow on the new OS, perhaps very soon after setup completes.
Apr 29 2020 09:18 PM
Hey John, I'm in the camp where you'd want to update your Firmware before an upgrade. (But on average, keeping your environment constantly updated. Ideally not coupled with the upgrade itself, but sometime before the upgrade.
You'd slip in the vendor tested driver pack during IPU
We're planning to leverage Setup Based Drivers during the upgrade as well, but it would be a "Sub Task Sequence" that we'd also be able to update and level set drivers whenever we need (Security Vulnerabilities, Stability issues, etc). We'd use this same "Module" to apply these setup based driver installers in OSD, IPU and Live Production machines. Goal is to have entire environment always consistent, patched, and stable.
Of course, this all goes with extensive testing on each platform before deployment.
Apr 30 2020 06:09 AM