Windows 10 updates have been one of the most contentious parts of the operating system. Since its launch in 2015, users have complained about the little control they had over this element of the operating system. Especially users of the Home edition of Windows. Microsoft tries that all the users can always have Windows, and all the components of the same, updated. And, 5 years after the arrival of this operating system, Microsoft continues to improve, in its own way, everything related to Windows updates. And the latest to come to Windows Update has been a new system of optional updates and drivers.
Optional Windows updates have always been in the operating system. These updates allow Microsoft to fix all kinds of non-security bugs and errors. However, they were either mixed in with normal updates, or forced users to download and install them manually. Nothing simple or practical in any way.
As for the drivers, Microsoft is responsible for downloading the Windows Update drivers when installing Windows , greatly simplifying the start-up of Windows. However, if later on you want to update the drivers, this must be done from the Device Manager, and a very manual and complicated process that nobody does.
A week ago we told you that Microsoft was planning to simplify these two tasks. On the one hand, it was going to group everything related to optional Windows updates in one place and, in addition, it was also going to carry everything related to driver updates within Windows Update .
Open the new optional updates from Windows Update
This change was expected to come with the release of Windows 10 20H2, the fall operating system update. However, any user of the May 2020 Update can now use this new system of optional updates. What’s more, if we look at the previous screenshot we can see that, indeed, in the Device Manager the possibility of searching for drivers in Windows Update no longer appears, only locally on the PC.
As of Windows 10 build 19041.450 , as long as certain conditions are met, we will be able to see within Windows Update a new section called ” Optional updates ” that will allow us to open this new system to install new versions of the drivers or apply corrections to the system non-safety related operations. This section will not appear all the time in Windows Update, we can only see it when:
- There is an optional update available to download and install on our operating system.
- When Microsoft has published new OEM drivers for our PC.
If this section does not appear, it is most likely that there are no optional updates to install. However, if we want to check, we can open it ourselves. To do this, we will use the keyboard shortcut Windows + R , to open the Windows run window, and execute the following command:
ms-settings:windowsupdate-optionalupdates
As we will see, this panel will be available on our PC. However, it will not show optional updates to install because there will not be any. Of course, it is advisable to check from time to time whether or not there are updates since these optional patches, and the drivers, will not be downloaded and installed automatically.