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Microsoft Will Soon Start Bundling Drivers With Windows Store Games (thurrott.com)
Microsoft will start bundling drivers with Windows Store games to improve the performance of the game once downloaded. A report on Thurrott adds: This will work by the game download trigging Windows Update to acquire the minimum driver requirements to make sure that application works as intended. This may perturb some users who like having complete control over the driver updates for their hardware as this auto-download mechanism will overwrite the existing installation of the driver. Of course, you can still roll-back the update but hopefully Microsoft gives us a way to stop the auto-download of the driver via the Windows Store when this feature arrives.
What could possibly go wrong?
Don't play games off Windows Store.
Wonder where they got that idea.
Windows Store == games for windows live, just for Windows 10.
It's basically their own special sandbox that they get a cut of, which is rife with technical hickups, and no guarantee you'll keep what you buy when the service is (nigh inevitably) shut down in (roll 2d8) years.
Lots of multi-platform development tools have added Windows store as a publishing output, but honestly, a regular-old Windows exe put out to GOG/Steam is the best choice, looking at every single example of income streams I've seen.
IF NOT XBOX:
PunishUser(_IncompatDrivers)
I'm just wondering what the motivation is here.
I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I play many video games. I've never had a situation where a game didn't work because the drivers were outdated. However, I've had PLENTY of situations where a newer driver caused all sorts of problems (BSOD, FPS drop, etc).
This is why I'm one of those people that adhere to the "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" mentality. My driver versions are usually pre-historic, but they work well enough for me.
Is Microsoft not content with just fucking up their own OS with updates that break Webcams and such? Do they want to make the machine totally unusable for one of their primary markets (video games) too?
Problem solved.
Really, with Steam, GOG, etc who needs it? I game like crazy and use window 10. Windows store games--not even once.
Silence is a state of mime.
Not only does every game ever ship with a copy of the version of DirectX it was built against, the GPU companies release game-specific "optimizations" at launch as part of their misguided attempts at value-add.
You will face the edge with games from Microsoft.
Will Microsoft then FORCE driver developers to decouple the ACTUAL drive from the shit bloat software that comes with them? Who the fuck needs a 300MiB download just for a video driver? The hardware vendors do, which over 90% of that is bloatastical bullshit, mostly just "fancy" ads for other games, or optional (but a pain in the fucking ass to remove) graphics utilities nobody asked for or even wanted in the first place.
Run this in an administrative Powershell:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage
You are now safe from assisting Microsoft in their attempts to force Windows users to an ecosystem controlled solely through their Windows Store.
Full drivers or the more basic ones without the ati / nvidia control panels / apps?
Will the bug of nvidia updater and windows update both auto updating drivers in a loop come back?
was Microsoft struck a deal with Uber.
Fuck windows.
Problem solved.
Really, those jokers aren't even trying to hide the fact they consider your computer to be their equipment. Forced updates whenever, ads on the lock screen, constantly resetting "open files of type X with..." preferences to Microsoft programs, now overriding your drivers. Why anyone keeps putting up with this is beyond me.
it's when every damn game starts the .Net or DirectX installers. Why can't Microsoft just make sure these are always installed? Just stop trying to install stuff that's already installed on practically every machine out there.
Of course, it's yet one more thing for Microsoft to ram down Windows users throats.
Also, what if some applications stop mentioning certain prerequisites, due to the operating system silently accommodating them? You know, the ones enabling additional....*a-HEM*...telemetry?
I think this and the un-removable SIM card are all indicators of them trying to "kick the legs out" of any arguments about why having your OS be a service will not work (in the case of the SIM card) and is beneficial (it is always up to date for drivers) in the case of this one.
Even aside from the (valid; but clearly not who Microsoft cares about catering to at this point, concerns about 'no, I don't really want Redmond scribbling all over my drivers 'automagically'); I just don't understand what purpose this serves. Microsoft already provides drivers through Windows Update; and while it can be persuaded otherwise, the intended consumer settings are 'check automatically for drivers when a new device is connected' and 'check for updated drivers periodically thereafter'.
That being so, what drivers remain for the precious 'windows store' to handle? There are a few games that have dedicated peripherals, so I suppose those might be a use case; but aside from that anyone who lets MS handle drivers for them already has drivers that are, at worst, perhaps a few days behind the curve. Windows update checks pretty frequently, and the only drivers that really churn significantly are GPU drivers(and even those move fastest in the vendor's own semi-beta release system, with the WHQL drivers typically moving less frequently).
So what is the point here? Are they just covering the tiny number of games that do require specific hardware? Is touching the Windows Store going to kick you off WHQL GPU drivers and onto bleeding-edge-gamer-fanboy drivers?
The issue of 'I don't want MS monkeying with my drivers' is getting close to moot at this point; they haven't entirely cut out your ability to disable it; but it is pretty strongly encouraged as a default; what confuses me, though, is that Windows Update already covers driver updates, so unless someone has deliberately chosen otherwise, they'll already be up to date. What's the point?
So I install software X, and software Y breaks because they share drivers or libraries, and Y is not compatible with the newer version of the shared parts?
This is what the famed DLL-Hell did. Is MS bringing that back? Hell, might as well bring back Clippy to make the nostalgia experience (nightmare) complete.
Table-ized A.I.
Over a decade ago apt-get would already download updated libraries and drivers if you installed a (or other program)
Finally microsoft catches up!
It even says so while it's searching for updates for drivers; "This may take a few minutes". So now we have to deal with that AND the game installation?
Is the idea to drive people away from their software? Looking at their crazy behavior over the past several years, I can't help but wonder if their new "business strategy" is to tank the company.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Windows Store == games for windows live, just for Windows 10.
It's basically their own special sandbox that they get a cut of, which is rife with technical hickups, and no guarantee you'll keep what you buy when the service is (nigh inevitably) shut down in (roll 2d8) years.
Lots of multi-platform development tools have added Windows store as a publishing output, but honestly, a regular-old Windows exe put out to GOG/Steam is the best choice, looking at every single example of income streams I've seen.
2d8? If I understand the lingo correct that's two 8 sided dice? Try flipping two coins instead. Heads = 1, tails = 0.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Two great articles by Shamus Young show just what a trainwreck the Windows Store is:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twe...
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twe...
I'm sure most here already knew that, but he really lays out how MS doesn't seem to care about the customer experience or competing with Steam (just muscling them out through lock-in). It's sad that Valve can't seem to make the Steambox concept work, but if MS's platform is the one that succeeds, then we all lose.
As a professional graphics programmer mainly working on Windows applications, this just further reinforces my view on windows 10: Debugging, reporting and working around their driver bugs is really hard, as is profiling graphics applications. The massive lack of control over what driver I have as a developer, as well as what the driver vendors optimize (they do game specific optimizations that I can't afford) is confusing.
Because of my professional work with Windows making me hate it I now will not use windows for my personal projects. I'd rather run my games under Wine than touch that plague: you gotta pay me 75$ an hour to deal with windows: I will not touch it for less.
For end users, this could create a broken configuration that could occur when whatever GPU software and Windows itself fight over who's driver gets installed that a user with poor computer knowledge would just be unable to grasp, and the support nightmare that comes along with it.
For power users, this is just annoying and further damages the likelihood anyone would use the Windows Store for anything other than to chuckle at.
I think Steam has pretty much sewed up the PC Gaming delivery platform. M$ wasting their time with this Windows Store thing.
Personally, if I wanted an 'App Store', I'd go buy an Apple. Windows Store is one of those things I just destroy it's icon and forget it even exists.
Like Communism, this sounds great in practise but reality says differently. I wouldn't trust it worth a damn because Microsoft has a fantastic track record of hosing people's machines with updates.
Heck, a recent update killed network access for countless people in the UK because they somehow managed to botch DHCP.
Considering Microsoft and driver's don't really go that well together. Such as myself noticing my precision touchpad driver is from 2006 from Microsoft and I believe precision touchpads have not even been around that long. I began to wonder how great it is to have Windows 10 installing my drivers for me? Ask any gamer and I think they will say leaving drivers up to Microsoft especially graphic drivers is not such a good thing. After all, I remember booting my new Dell notebook shortly after Win 10 was released and getting a notification that my graphic driver had crashed. I think it was a month or more before that was resolved.
n/t
As if I needed another reason to avoid the windows store for game purchases...
Too bad I "accidentally" removed it completely twice, first at the initial install and a second time (also totally by accident woops) when installing the anniversary update.
Seriously though, I'm curious at MS strategy here. Why not simply pull the update from WA when available if it's so good and so harmless? Seems like a "technically" better move to me.
gpedit.exe is the answer to this. You can block the installation of drivers by hardware ID and not have to worry about windows update changing this, even after you apply the setting that is supposedly to prevent this in advanced system settings.. This utility had been crucial through the preview builds and early release in which the supplied engineer drivers for AMD cards did not support DX9 games and caused black screen crashes and even BSOD when trying to play legacy titles. It was important, and against conventional wisdom (and not being able to use DX12 features), to use a 64bit driver for Windows 7 to ensure that legacy titles were able to be played in Windows 10 and to be able to explicitly tell windows update to leave the driver alone.
As far as installing drivers over top of existing drivers, completely moronic idea. As stated in the instance above, it could have severe consequences in stability and Microsoft support will be the last person I will be calling. :)
>> hopefully Microsoft gives us a way to stop the auto-download
Under Windows 10 I can't even choose what system updates it downloads or if/when they get installed.
What makes you think that any company that even thinks that is OK in the first place, will give gamers any more choices?
nVidia doesn't automagically install anything on my system, they don't even ask me if they can update. They just put up an easily-missed notification in the system tray.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
too bad that mac os is not on more hardware and they are pushing there locked down store very hard.
Linux to many distributions and not a lot of linux games. Wine is very hit or miss.
... To never buy any game on the windows store.
But still you can have it where the MS auto installs an older WHQL driver on top of a newer one installed by the ATI or NVIDIA app.
> but hopefully Microsoft gives us
No, they won't. Or if they do, it will be something that will go away later. Windows users will put up with anything, so why should they bend over backwards for them in any way?
That's 2d2-2 you casual.
From a consumer stand-point as a power-user, this sucks as I can manage my own drivers thank you.
As a professional game developer, this is fantastic as a good number of defects that are reported back to devs, especially after a new release, are due to outdated drivers.
Why not? I honestly don't understand why keeping an old driver is a good thing... Unless drivers ship broken and untestex on Windows for some reason?
If games are breaking over driver versions then there is a huge problem with DirectX not doing its job. Wtf is going on here when drivers are breaking games, and where a game that runs fine on AMD GPUs is failing outright on Nvidia (like Arkham Knight) or the other way around?
I seriously doubt this has anything to do with drivers, which are merely there to feed calls to the GPU, and the blame falls on a broken DirectX implementation.