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Windows Updates Now With Zero Documentation?


NoelC

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Today I'm greeted by the need to put in two Windows 8.1 x64 updates.

 

One, KB3035034, is a security update for Adobe Flash Player, and on the general principle that more security is better and at least a few good programmers work at Adobe I've gone ahead and put KB3035034 in as it does have documentation: 

 

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3035034

 

No reboot was required for KB3035034, thankfully, so my system remains operational from its boot after January Update Tuesday.

 

UpTime01282015.png

 

The second update that appeared today, labeled Optional, is a WD SES Device update, presumably because Western Digital has released a new version - though I don't know why; my USB MyBook backup drives have always worked perfectly on the old driver developed in the time of Windows 7.

 

I clicked the More information link to try to find out why a new driver has been released.  Zzzzt.   No information online:

 

NoInfoForSESDriver.png

 

A Google search didn't turn up much of anything either.

 

The spirit of my Pop whispered to me, "if it works, don't fix it", and so I shall wait for more information before making a decision on whether to install it.  After all, it is the time of Windows 10 previews...  Microsoft has NO business incentive to deliver updates to Windows 8.1 of the excellent :) caliber they have in the past.

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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Blah, who in their right mind would download drivers from Windows Update? :P

I do! Did it once.

I downloaded, manually from the MS Update Catalog, a driver for the Intel MEI, which is a part of Intel's AMT, which is a strange Intel something that doesn't do anything useful, and as far as I could tell, specifically on the laptop I needed it for, it does absolutely nothing at all.

The normal Intel drivers for it are large and add a lot of junk. The driver on MS's site is 50K and it also removes the exclamation point icon from Device Manager. :)

Edited by shae
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I agree. A simple placeholder should at least be used... something with a generic message like "see the manufacturer for driver information" rather than returning an error page.

 

@shae installing IME drivers really just make the flag go away. It is some sort of Enterprise management thing. On my personal systems, I just leave the device flagged since I don't use that platform.

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The first time I encountered it I spent time trying to understand what this Intel thing is. My conclusion was that it's a VNC-like remote control including BIOS screens and power on/off control. Maybe also remote wiping. But it also requires BIOS support, which isn't present here as far as I can tell.

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