I work as a part-time system administrator and recently (in the last few months), we've been experiencing BSODs on almost all PCs in our group. We do know that most of these BSODs were caused by a certain Intel graphics driver, which was installed via Windows Auto Update in march.
So we tried to install an older version. This worked out well, but: Windows updated the driver. Now, in the AU settings, it clearly says that this very update is optional. We configured our AU to install crucial updates only.
So the first question is: Why does WAU install non-crucial drivers even though it's not configured to do so?
Now, to my second question. It's possible to hide optional updates so WAU doesn't install them. So I thought it might be a good idea to install the old driver and then check WAU for the optional driver update (odu) and then hide it. I didn't see the driver in the "optional updates" section yet, but it might show up some time soon.
Since there are about 15 PCs with that problem and we use a distribution service (WPKG) it would be very convenient to do the following:
- having a script run by WPKG that checks whether the odu is present. This script could be js, bat or vbs. The script is run upon start-up. Using "grep", sadly, is not an option.
- if the script returns true, the odu will be hidden and thus the update disabled, the older driver prevails and no more bluescreens will show up.
Is this possible, if so: How?
Thank you
