Older drivers withdrawn Windows 10 - 1903

[mangpat]

Hi,

I have HP 245 G7 Notebook. AMD APU. I have Windows 10 1903 installed on it.

Sometime back when I visited the support page for this model, I could see that drivers were listed available download by specific versions of Windows 10. e.g. 1903/1909/2004.

However now I find that it's mainly available for Windows 10 1909. Even 2004 is removed.

Is there any specific reason to remove Windows 10 version specific drivers from the download page?

I found that Audio drivers for 1909 were not stable and HP Audio Control did not load. I found 1903 stable with this hardware and all drivers for 1903 were working fine. So I am still on 1903. I did try clean install of 1909 but due to drivers not working correctly, I reverted to 1903.

Earlier I had downloaded all 1903 drivers, so I have them offline, but I am wondering what made HP remove them from the download page?

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Since this is a peer to peer forum, no one here would be able to answer your question.

I recommend you contact the HP executive team at the link below and see why they removed the older versions of the drivers.

https://ssl.www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/connect-with-hp.html

Seems pretty odd to me that they don't have a list of previous driver versions on the support page, but I see that they don't.

[ieee488]

It may have something to do with Microsoft's Windows 10 lifecycle support.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet

End of service for v1803 was November 2019.

[mangpat]

Thanks for the reply. However I am mainly focusing on 1903 & 2004 drivers. 1903 is still supported up to December 8, 2020.

Sometimes I find that the actual solution to an issue in Windows 10 is indeed to rollback the relevant driver or look for an earlier version on support page!

Best regards.

[ieee488]

I have installed Windows 10 on over a dozen different laptops.

Laptops from Dell, Acer, Lenovo, HP.

I have never found any need for older Windows 10 drivers.

.

[mangpat]

Hi,

I have several instances where older drivers worked better. When I rolled back my networking drivers, WiFi random disconnects stopped. On my Acer laptop the Realtek sound driver would not remember & adjust the volume level when headphone was plugged in. It would still play at say 70% volume even when earlier headphone setting was say 20%. Rolling back Realtek to default Windows 10 driver solved the issue.

For me latest in Software has never been the Greatest!

Even with 1909 on my HP laptop the audio driver and associated app was not working great. It would throw an error 'could not connect to RPC service' and fail.  Similar thread here without solution https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/hp-audio-control-can-not-connect-to-RPC-service/td-p/69...

Finally I went back to 1903 and installed all HP drivers specifically designed for 1903 and all worked well.

Bit strange but it's true for my HP laptop model, that the drivers install only for that Windows version. Here's what happens when I tried to install driver meant for one Windows 10 version on to another Windows 10 version.

Fortunately I had already downloaded all 1903 drivers when they were available on the support page! 

Best regards.

[mangpat]

@Paul_Tikkanen  Yes, I have written to the Executive Team and just informed them that I found 1903 drivers the best and HP should make them available for download at least until v1903 is supported. Let's see what they respond in due course on my request.

Best regards.

[mangpat · Accepted solution]

They did not reply despite 2 months have gone by! 

Mods may like to close this thread!