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It seems drivers updates for Windows 7 are still not 100% automated.

When I check the driver for my video card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 - via the device manager, it says the driver is up to date, with date 20 May 2011. When I search via Nvidia's support, I find this driver from August 2011, which is newer.

Why are there still delays in getting drivers pushed automatically nowadays? Is it because the driver is "relatively new" - two months old? I've had similar issues with older drivers as well.

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closed as not constructive by Linker3000, techie007, Gareth, Nifle, Mike Fitzpatrick Oct 21 '11 at 22:45

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2 Answers

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Most likely the NVIDIA driver you have is approved by WHQL. The one on the manufacturer site is newer, but hasn't finished the approval process yet.

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This - Windows Update doesn't just let manufacturers throw new drivers onto it willy-nilly. I personally don't recommend updating drivers period anyway unless they're addressing some problem you have or adding some feature you want. Video card drivers especially are notorious for new releases to up the framerate on the latest, greatest game - which would be fine if they were adequately tested for bugs, but they're not. You can cause more trouble than you fix. – Shinrai Oct 21 '11 at 15:00
tl;dr - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. – Shinrai Oct 21 '11 at 15:02
That depends. Sometimes a newer driver fixes bugs or performance issues that you don't even know you have. – Nighthawk Oct 21 '11 at 20:00
That's true, but if it's a bug that isn't actually causing you any grief (which it probably isn't if you're unaware of it), it's IMO not worth the risk. YMMV, of course. – Shinrai Oct 21 '11 at 20:11
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up vote 1 down vote

For things like video cards the chipset may be nVidia (or whoever) but the card is made by a third party. That is who needs to make the driver available. They also may make minor changes to the fucntion and so need a unique driver. See this often for nVidia cards that come in Dell laptops. nVidia notes that only the Dell driver should be used. As @Nighthawk notes there are other factors as well. I have found that even if MS posts a video driver, it may not work due to changes made by the maker of the card.

Checking the maufacturer site for a driver once in a while is not too hard. Later Dell and Lenovo (probably others) hardware provide an app that works likle Windows update but for their hardware and drivers.

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