Intel Driver & Support Assistant Still Fighting with Windows Update (each "updates" the other's)

[GraniteStateColin]

Intel D&SA fights with Windows Update. It's a serious bug, a major hassle, and the bane of my computing work. Either, I have to continually disable and manually reject each and every D&SA display adapter update (this is my current work-around) or deal with Intel updating, then let Windows Update downgrade back to an older version that night, then the next day Intel D&SA updates to the latest version, then Windows Update downgrades, etc. forever. 

I see multiple posts here in the forum by other users with the same problem, none of them solved.

I have already tried the recommendations to reinstall D&SA, to no avail. The problem has nothing to do with that. The problem is that Windows Update doesn't know that the version installed by Intel D&SA is actually an authorized, approved WHQL-certified driver. This is a communication failure between Intel and Microsoft, and it's Intel's responsibility to fix it and ensure that you only push WHQL drivers that are also registered with MS (like Nvidia does), or at least give us an option in D&SA to only use those drivers, in case some users want to use the bleeding edge version. 

I do see that there is now an option to "hide forever" to stop D&SA for scanning the graphics drivers, while still updating networking and others, but this isn't as good, because I do want it to keep the graphics drivers up to date too, just limited to properly registered drivers that don't trigger MS to downgrade them. But if the problem continues and Intel can't fix it, that will be my eventually fallback work-around.

Note that because I'm on Starlink, I only have 1TB of unlimited data per month, which I get close to hitting, so these big display driver updates, one day by Intel, then the next day by MS, every day, are a huge waste of my bandwidth.

Even worse than that, every time there's a big update (unlike Nvidia's, which never require a restart), these demand I restart the computer every time, which is giant waste of time and completely disrupts my work. 

Please:

A) Fix the bug with Microsoft so that Windows Update stops forcing an older Intel driver to replace the new one from D&SA.

B) Provide clear steps on what users need to do about this (and it is NOT to remove and reinstall D&SA). I have the same problem on many computers, so it's clearly not an isolated case, even if it doesn't affect everyone.

[MRoss5200]

This has nothing to do with iDSA. This is all Windows Update that is the issue. 

What happens is, Windows Update uses a Graphics driver that has a 4-part HWID assigned to the hardware manufacturer installed in the system. 

Example:

This is a 4-part HWID for a NUC with Tiger Lake internal graphics:

%INTEL_DEV_9A78% = iTGLD_w10_DS, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9A78&SUBSYS_30028086

The last part is the 4-part HWID add-on. This is what gets assigned to the Gfx driver on Windows Update for the hardware detected.

The same HWID is included in the generic Intel Internal Graphics Driver that is downloaded using iDSA:

%INTEL_DEV_9A78% = iTGLD_w10_DS, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9A78

If you notice, there is not any extra information after the device ID. This is the same device ID every computer that uses this model CPU will have. The additional 4-part HWID that is added is specific for the hardware manufacturer that is building with a Tiger Lake CPU with internal graphics. This is done because if the manufacturer has custom requirements for their system, the driver does not get replaced with a generic version and may break compatibility. 

Unfortunately, this is a Microsoft requirement that any graphics driver posted to Windows Update must include a 4-part HWID. A 4part HWID always take preference over a 2-part HWID. That is why the newer 2-part HWID driver from iDSA is getting replaced with the older 4-part HWID graphics driver from Windows Update.

[GraniteStateColin]

MRoss5200, thanks for the explanation. That makes sense and it's good to understand what's going on under the hood.

But it also seems largely irrelevant: bottom line is that Intel and Microsoft, who team on a wide variety of fronts, apparently can't address this most basic principle of ensuring a reasonable UX for their shared customers. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but by your description, it would seem this means that all users who buy a motherboard with Intel integrated graphics will have this problem. Motherboard makers rarely update the drivers after the first few months of release, so for security and other reasons, we need to keep updating them. 

Or, would you say that ones from Windows Update, while not as new as the ones from Intel, are at least always current for security issues, and so we should just select the "hide forever" option to stop D&SA from updating the graphics driver and restarting the infinite loop of broken updates?

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello GraniteStateColin,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities. I am sorry to know that you are having issues with the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant (Intel® DSA). 

Before we continue, I would like to confirm if you tried the steps from the article "How Do I Resolve Upgrade Issues with Intel® Driver & Support Assistant (Intel® DSA)?"

• https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000059899/software/software-applications.html

If you already tried it, please provide the following:

1. Run the Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU) to gather more details about the system.  

• Download the Intel® SSU and save the application on your computer: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18377/intel-system-support-utility-for-windows.html  
• Open the application, check the "Everything" checkbox, and click "Scan" to see the system and device information. The Intel® SSU defaults to the "Summary View" on the output screen following the scan. Click the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".  
• To save your scan, click Next and click Save. 

2. The loss from Intel® Driver & Support Assistant (Intel® DSA):

• https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000089850.html

Regards,  

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[GraniteStateColin]

Deivid, how does your reply fit with the prior reply from MRoss5200 who said this is a known and unavoidable issues due to the way Windows Update works? Are you saying that he is mistaken? 

Yes, I had removed and cleared the DSA data and reinstalled. No effect. 

I have the SSU scan results to post, but please confirm that if I upload them, they will not be publicly accessible to everyone in this forum. I want to be sure the files will only be accessible to Intel Support.

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello GraniteStateColin, 

After checking your thread, I would like to know if you need further assistance. 

If so, please let me know. 

Regards,  

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello GraniteStateColin,  

I was checking your thread and see that we have not heard back from you.  

I’m going to close your post, but if you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to create a new thread. 

Regards,  

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[GraniteStateColin]

DeividA_Intel, did you really close this post instead of responding to my post asking if you believe that MRoss5200 is wrong, because your answer and has cannot both be right? If so, that's despicable support. If you are still reading these and just working on a response, then thank you you. Please hurry up.

[Gabriela_Intel]

Hi @GraniteStateColin,

We hear you on this. We're aware of this ongoing issue and we raised it again to our internal teams. The team did some investigation of the behavior of Windows Update, Intel DSA , and our graphics driver installer and was able to find a potential workaround.

We can't promise that this will resolve the issue entirely but rest assured we are looking into how we can get around this long standing issue. We can give a better update once we have results of this potential workaround.

Thanks so much for your patience!

Gabriela E.

Product Support Engineer