Windows Update is getting better at saving your PC from outdated drivers

Hardware driver updates can be both a blessing and a curse. When it’s good, it can fix bugs, improve performance, and add new capabilities, giving your PC a little upgrade without the need for extra or investment. When it’s bad, it can make an already reliable PC slow and unstable, giving you a one-way ticket to blue screen town (or any kind of Windows error screen these days).

While gamers and other enthusiasts may be in the habit of downloading and installing new driver updates on their systems, most PC users simply let Windows Update handle installation and updates. PC manufacturers can submit their tested and approved drivers for distribution via Windows Update, which (in theory) should increase stability and reduce problems.

But mistakes happen, and sometimes driver updates are shared that cause more problems than they fix. Often times when this happens, the company has to send a default driver to Windows Update, or the user is on the hook to roll back the update or find and download the correct driver themselves.

Now Microsoft offers another option: automatic recovery of the old driver, even after the cart is downloaded and installed. Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, as the company calls itit allows Microsoft to “initiate recovery from the cloud, instead of a critical driver on affected devices without manual input from the user or hardware partner.”