Microsoft is tightening up security for Windows users by removing (potentially vulnerable) legacy drivers from Windows Update. A Microsoft blog post reports that the trillion-dollar giant will be removing legacy and expiring drivers that are "no longer associated with an audience in Windows Update" on a regular basis.
Microsoft's goal is to reduce security and compatibility risks, as well as improve driver quality for Windows users with its new driver cleanup strategy. The first phase of the cleanup will allegedly target legacy drivers that already have newer replacements on Windows Update. Future cleanups will target more categories of drivers that Microsoft "deems fit to be expired from Windows Update."
Expiring drivers are drivers that are no longer being offered to any system. For Microsoft, cleaning up these drivers means removing all of its audience assignments in the Hardware Development Center, preventing Windows Update from offering affected drivers to any devices.
Microsoft will provide a 6-month window for partners to provide any feedback surrounding expired drivers, and whether or not the driver should stay in the Windows Update catalog. If nothing happens, the drivers will be permanently removed for good. However, Microsoft partners will still be allowed to republish expired drivers if needed. (Though Microsoft claims it may require a "business justification" to explain why there was a need to republish an expired driver.)
Furthermore, Microsoft expects partners to review their current driver suite in its Hardware Program and proactively remove their unwanted or legacy drivers. In the future, Microsoft will allegedly prepare new publishing guidelines that will "help all Windows users keep their systems in a secure and reliable state".
Hopefully, this will improve Windows Update's reputation and improve the quality of drivers that are sent to Windows machines. Windows Update often gets accused of providing bad updates and bad drivers. Sometimes, these accusations are legitimate, where a buggy driver gets installed that wrecks the user's computer. Worse, these faulty drivers can reinstall themselves automatically, making them a nightmare to deal with if the user tries to uninstall them manually.
However, it could be a double-edged sword for older devices. Depending on how many driver updates get deprecated, older machines and older devices, say a 10-year-old printer, might lose functionality if there are no 3rd party drivers to rely on. Only time will tell if this becomes a problem.
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