Manual Download Works When WU Finds Nothing
I follow the news at TenForums.com. Among other things, it keeps me up with new Insider Preview releases. It also cover updates and changes in Windows-World. This morning I saw a interesting headline in its News Forum. It reads New Firmware Update for Surface Pro 3 – August 7, 2018. Take a look, and you’ll see it links to an MS Support Note. Check that note, and it says “Run WU and you’ll get the update.” So that’s what I did. But WU found zero, zip, nada. Knowing that there’s always another way to grab MS updates I recalled the Download drivers and firmware for Surface page. Sure enough there’s a link for Surface Pro 3 stuff there. It includes two entries of interest — namely a TPM update tool and a Surface Firmware Tool. And that, dear readers, is how I found that manual download works when WU finds nothing.
Items tend to enter this list at the top, so I was pretty sure these two items were what I needed. So I downloaded and installed them.
Proving That Manual Download Works When WU Finds Nothing
Based on the information in the download description, I knew that the BIOS version was 3.11.2450. Using PowerShell and the Get-WMIObject Win32_BIOS command, I was able to confirm that, after applying the update, that’s what version of the UEFI was running.
A quick jaunt into PowerShell confirms that the most current version of the UEFI firmware is indeed running. Success!
So remember: if the news says an update is available, but WU fails to send it your way, there’s almost always some way to grab it in file form and install it manually. That’s what I did here. It’s also what others can do, too, if they check an appropriate source for downloads. For most updates that’s the Microsoft Update Catalog. For Surface PCs, however, it’s the Download drivers and firmware for Surface page. ‘Nuff said.