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Microsoft to auto-update drivers for Windows Store games

by Mark Tyson on 14 December 2016, 10:04

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Windows 10

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Microsoft first officially unveiled the Windows 10 Creators Update back in October. It trumpeted a new found focus on improving content creation workflows, with "3D for everyone", mixed reality (AR) experiences, improved 4K gaming, game broadcasting, and more. All built into Windows. At WinHEC last week we began to see some more aspects of the Creators Update. From the technical side of things, and certainly newsworthy, was news of full-fat Windows coming to Qualcomm Snapdragon powered 'cellular PCs'.

Another interesting nugget of news from WinHEC has only just been covered this week, and it involves 'Microsoft's Gaming Vision' - an area always important to HEXUS readers. As reported by Thurrott.com, Microsoft held a session (video link) called 'Graphics and Gaming Investments in Windows 10 Creators Update' to flesh out its vision.

The introductory slide outlined Microsoft's goal that, as a gamer, a user will be able to; play the games you want, with the people you want, on the devices you want. It has already gone some way towards this goal with its Xbox Play Anywhere experience.

To provide the best possible gaming experience in Windows Microsoft has some further plans, as outlined above. You can see mentioned some features we have heard of before, like plans for game broadcasting being built into Xbox and Windows 10. However, among the new technologies Microsoft is touting, you can see something new: automated driver delivery for games from the Microsoft Store.

Thurrott.com foresees some gnashing of teeth occurring if Microsoft takes complete control of graphics driver updates, overwriting existing installations to suit new games as they are released, for example. It is hoped that Microsoft offers the automated driver delivery as an option, and one that is easily toggled on or off when the Windows 10 Creators Update arrives.



HEXUS Forums :: 11 Comments

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Actually this is something I would appreciate, too many driver updates plaguing pc gaming, someone at MS is paying attention.

If your invested in xbox then you likely prefer stability and easy of use, the people who love to live on the bleeding edge and breaking things are more likely to not be users of Xbox.

Anyway that's really just a side issue, the biggest thing holding back Xbox PC is the messy store fronts not just the win store but the one in the xbox app as well, inconsistency among games like dead rising 4 isn't an xbox anywhere title, they have much bigger issue to square away in this area.

An xbox app with a store front that puts proper xbox pc games front and center, categories, more xbox anywhere titles, marketing with special offers, are all things that should be their top priority.
The thing with XBox is that MS effectively control it anyway. PCs are often used for a variety of disparate uses, some of which, for example, require specific driver versions to properly support hardware, or a particular configuration for software reasons.

Thurrott.com foresees some gnashing of teeth occurring if Microsoft takes complete control of graphics driver updates, overwriting existing installations to suit new games as they are released, for example. It is hoped that Microsoft offers the automated driver delivery as an option, and one that is easily toggled on or off when the Windows 10 Creators Update arrives.
Some gnashing?

As stated, “hopefully” it will be optional, toggleable. But personally, I wouldn't bet on it, because that concept is alien to the MS Win10 mindset, which is entirely that THEY oen the right to remote-configure YOUR computer, anytime time they feel like it, and if upgrading drivers suits their strategic objectives in delivering their store, my bet is they'll steamroller right over any such hopes, or objections.

My views on Win10 aren't exactly secret, but this kind of thing is exactly why I decided to abandon Windows for the future, sticking with Win 7 (and even earlier) on some machines, and reluctantly moving the rest to Linux.

Maybe my cynicism will be unfounded, and this will be optional. This time.

But I'm not going to hold my breath. Instead, I'll issue a smug sigh of relief that it doesn't affect me.
Sounds like a good idea if optional but I thought the Windows store was pretty dead was PC Gaming? They tried hard but steam/origin/gog etc will be almost impossible to displace and first impressions have not been good (No cross play with steam users for the latest COD, big graphical limitations with the early games like no vsync).
Knowing Microsoft it will be enabled by default with some esoteric hidden setting if you want to opt-out or if the driver causes issues.
Considering the last few nvidia updates have had issues which needed fixing I hate the idea of drivers being updated automatically…. Luckily I'm not likely to install any games via windows store :)