Microsoft Adds Automatic Driver Rollback to Windows Update

Microsoft is making Windows Update a lot less disruptive as part of its mission to fix Windows 11. The company is improving the often-frustrating Windows Update experience with multiple changes, including a new capability to automatically address problematic drivers.

Microsoft has created a new “Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery” feature that can replace a faulty driver installed on a PC with a previously working driver through Windows Update. Right now, Windows 11 users have to manually roll back a driver or hardware vendors have to publish a new one to work around any problems. This new feature aims to make the process automatic.

“When a driver is identified as having quality issues during our shiproom evaluation process, Microsoft can now initiate a recovery action from the cloud, replacing the problematic driver on affected devices without requiring manual intervention from the user or the hardware partner,” explains Garrett Duchesne, principal program manager at Microsoft.

The new Windows Update feature is currently being tested with Microsoft’s hardware partners. It should start gradually rolling out in September.

Microsoft is also making Windows updates less disruptive with the ability to extend a pause date as many times as needed, allowing users to pause updates indefinitely. Users will be able to skip updates during initial device setup. In addition, it will be possible to restart or shutdown a PC without having to install a pending update.

These adjustments form part of broader efforts to reduce disruptions from the update process in Windows 11. The combination of automatic driver recovery and flexible pause options addresses key pain points for users and partners alike.