Microsoft has admitted that faulty drivers have been silently draining battery life and hurting performance on Windows 11 for years. The company disclosed the issue at the WinHEC 2026 conference. It acknowledged that problematic drivers could prevent laptops from entering hibernation, leading to excessive battery drain.
Driver Quality Initiative announced
To address the problem, Microsoft announced a complete overhaul of its driver evaluation process. The new Driver Quality Initiative will penalize poorly optimized drivers. It will also block older low-quality drivers from being distributed via Windows Update. Additionally, Microsoft is rolling out automatic rollback features for problematic driver updates.
The admission comes after years of user complaints about unexplained battery drain on Windows 11 devices. The issue affected a wide range of hardware configurations. Microsoft's new initiative aims to restore trust in the Windows update ecosystem and improve overall system reliability.
Windows Latest reported on Microsoft's acknowledgment and the planned changes. The company has not yet detailed the timeline for the full rollout of the Driver Quality Initiative. Some aspects of the new evaluation process remain unclear.
Source: TweakTown
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